Guarded by Eastwind's SMS Firewall operators can block spam, prevent fraudulent attacks on their networks, and increase their income from A2P traffic. The primary goal of our project with Zain Kuwait was to monetize commercial SMS. Read how we did it. Zain Kuwait is a telecom operator in Kuwait with a subscriber base of more than 2.5 million people. It is part of the Zain Group, which operates in Bahrain, Lebanon, Iraq, and other countries in the Middle East and Africa.
 

A2P Traffic Is a Source of an Operator’s Income at Risk

A2P (application-to-person) traffic consists of commercial SMS messages from various brands and companies. These can be authorization codes, SMS advertising, and other content from services and stores like WhatsApp, Google, IKEA, etc.

Companies send SMS to their customers through content providers, creating a delivery chain with multiple intermediaries. Often, the brand is unaware that some intermediaries use "grey" routes to send A2P traffic. For example, if a company pays for an international message, the content provider may disguise the SMS as local and pocket the price difference. As a result, the operator earns less revenue. Telecom operators worldwide lose an estimated $8 billion annually affected by said schemes.

Data on lost operator revenues from A2P traffic: Mobilesquared for Mobile Ecosystem Forum, 2021

To detect unscrupulous providers on its network, Zain Kuwait chose the EW SMS Firewall solution. Since the end of 2022, we have been helping the operator monetize A2P traffic and recover lost revenue.

Learn More About the Capabilities of the EW SMS Firewall
 

How We Implemented the Solution: Flexible Integration with the Operator's System

We customized the product for the customer's infrastructure to implement an SMS Firewall in Zain Kuwait. The operator's content providers were connected through a single SMS messaging platform, which made it difficult to determine the source of messages via the SMPP protocol. We parsed detailed information about all SMS sent through the operator's platform to identify senders.

Based on consolidated data, SMS Firewall began comparing the sender IDs and SMS types to identify inconsistencies typical of "grey" traffic sent at a reduced cost. Now, the operator receives regular reports on all messages, indicating which SMS went through legitimate routes and which bypassed tariffs.


In the blue frame, there are international sender IDs, SMS from which content providers sent at a local rate (approximately 93% cheaper than international rates)

Thanks to these reports, the operator receives evidence of content providers' fraud. Then, he can collect compensation from unscrupulous intermediaries, renew contracts with them, or exclude them from the message delivery chain.


On average, we regularly detect more than 20% of international messages in the operator's local traffic
 

> 6,700,000 SMS sent using grey schemes were recorded by the EW SMS Firewall from January to March 2024

$188,000 in 3 months the operator's lost revenue from A2P traffic

What Other Problems EW SMS Firewall Solves

In addition to monetizing “grey” A2P traffic, our product:
 

• Protects against spam.

The solution filters all SMS messages to subscribers, analyzing the sender, the text, and other parameters. If an SMS shows signs of a spam campaign, it blocks it.
 

• Fights scammers.

The EW SMS Firewall protects against SMS flooding, spoofing, and other attacks.

Zain Kuwait does not currently use these product features, but we are discussing their possible implementation in the future.

“Zain Kuwait is ready to develop our cooperation in monetizing A2P traffic and is considering using SMS Firewall to achieve other goals. We appreciate the operator's trust in us.”
 

Andrew Alimpiev, Head of International Market Development at Eastwind

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