Year six of the STI-GA sees tremendous growth in service provider participation and the foreshadowing of truly automated cross-border call signing between Canada and the U.S.
The industry-run Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority (STI-GA) is a critical body helping the industry achieve success in mitigating the problem of unwanted robocalling. ATIS works with the STI-GA Board to define the rules governing the certificate management infrastructure, with the goal of ensuring calls are effectively “certified” to help maintain the public trust in the U.S. telephone network.
In November 2024, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued its “Third Party Rule,” requiring voice service providers to obtain and have
their calls signed with their own Secure Telephone Identity Certificate (STI Certificate). This rule, which took effect on September 18, 2025, led to an influx of small providers seeking authorization with the Secure Telephone Identity Policy Administrator (STI-PA) over the summer months. Between May and the end of August approximately 350 providers registered with the STI-PA. Compare this activity to the approximately 100 that registered in all of 2024.
The purpose of the FCC Order was to reduce the number of calls that are improperly authenticated and increase accountability for the providers responsible for signing the calls. Providers may continue to work with third parties to have their calls signed, but those call signatures must be able to identify the actual service provider, as opposed to the third party. The FCC believes this will make call authentication more accurate — and also speed traceback of spam and scam calls. The effect of this activity is likely to be experienced in 2026.
As the STI-GA has worked to accommodate the expanded volumes of domestic registrations, it continues to have its eye on expanding STIR/SHAKEN internationally. The STI-GA approved the development and testing of system changes that will allow for fully automated call authentication, first between Canada and the U.S., but also between other countries and the U.S.
While these changes are likely to be implemented at the start of 2026, most of the work to get to that point occurs in 2025. This will be the culmination of a years-long effort to coordinate call authentication between the U.S. and Canada. As the two countries send a great deal of telecommunications traffic across the border, this is an important development that will help consumers in both countries regain trust in the communications network.
The day-to-day running of the first and largest STIR/SHAKEN call authentication framework in the world requires a great deal of work. Just as important, however, is the STI-GA focus on continued expansion of the STIR/SHAKEN call authentication tool both domestically and internationally. The value of STIR/SHAKEN only increases with the percentage of calls being signed ever rising. Learn more at https://sti-ga.atis.org/