Enterprises can integrate the new CPaaS using APIs and plug-ins, no coding required, the company says
Belgian international telco services company BICS has announced the launch of its Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) platform. The new solution is aimed at enterprises looking for an easy way to integrate communication services including voice, text, and WhatsApp messaging into their existing services and workflows using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
BICS is calling the new CPaaS platform ”your customer engagement toolbox,” with multichannel communications handled code-free, and managed using a single panel dashboard. The service is completely white-label, so enterprises can rebrand it according to their needs. System integration is handled using plug-ins and APIs; BICS CPaaS customers can assign numbers and have complete service permission control as well.
Security features include two-factor authentication and compliance with the European Union’s (EU’s) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) framework. BICS’s CPaaS incorporates interactive voice response (IVR) features, customer identity safeguarding through techniques like number masking and more.
BICS said the new solution will help enterprises eliminate “grey routes,” or substandard communications connections which can result in undeliverable messages — undesirable outcomes that BICS claims will cost enterprises money and customer goodwill. BICS leverages what it calls “carrier-grade infrastructure” to make sure messages are delivered where and when they are supposed to be – the company counts 180 countries and 900 operators as part of its global network underpinning.
BICS envisions the CPaaS meeting the needs of numerous enterprise verticals including retail and e-commerce, banking and financial services, and travel and hospitality. Leveraging trusted infrastructure also has positive security implications, BICS noted. “As BICS owns its own network, the company will carry calls and messages through its backbone infrastructure rather than the internet, removing the risk of threats such as eavesdropping,” said the company.
BICS counts anti-fraud and security countermeasures including the company’s FraudGuard platform, which leverages data from more than 900 service providers and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to detect and block incoming fraudulent calls and text. BICS claims that it blocks about 3 million robocalls each month.
The emphasis on AI and ML reflects BICS data-first approach to operational excellence, according to Damion Rose, the company’s senior product manager of mobile signaling and data analytics. Rose told RCR Wireless News during a 2021 webinar that it’s important for mobile operators to employ AI and ML mindfully in the service of driving effective operational outcomes.
“I think everyone would understand and can see our way forward to automating these use cases by enabling software-defined networks to make decisions on a day-to-day basis. Any adventure into applying data science should start from the use cases and the data behind that use case. Everything comes back to data quality,” he said.
BICS signed an agreement with satellite communication service provider Lynk Global in September. Lynk is pairing its satellite technology with BICS’ network, providing mobile operators in the Lynk Global network coverage area — which includes North America, the Caribbean, Latin America, South-East Asia and several rural areas in Africa — with extended network coverage in areas without cell towers.
