Vodafone Germany Chooses RealNetworks to Test an Anti-Fraud Voice Call Solution Using KONTXT

 Pilot project will gain insights on spam rejection performance and customer experience

RealNetworks^®, a leader in AI-powered digital media software and services, announced a pilot program with Vodafone Germany to launch a new service called Vodafone CallProtect. Vodafone CallProtect will warn Vodafone Germany customers of potential fraudulent, scam, or spam-type calls. The technology behind CallProtect is RealNetworks' KONTXT^®, an AI-based anti-spam solution for messaging and voice calls, which includes the KONTXT Reputation Service database.

The benefit of RealNetworks technology is the offering of a rich feature set for anti-fraud protection for both voice calls and messaging. Clients of KONTXT decide which modules are activated for data analysis and customer protection. The Vodafone CallProtect pilot project will use the KONTXT Android SDK for call enrichment and the KONTXT Reputation Service for number lookups. The KONTXT Reputation Service database contains known spam numbers provided from leading spam database providers. The Reputation Service is also capable of MSISDN risk rating based on the latest AI/ML technology.

Vodafone CallProtect will be integrated into the Vodafone Secure Net service for Android. Vodafone Secure Net is a mobile network-based security product that helps protect Vodafone customers' mobile devices. When connected to the Vodafone mobile network in Germany, it automatically blocks harmful sites and quickly protects against viruses before they can cause harm. Secure Net users will be able to activate and deactivate the service. Once activated, all incoming calls will be matched against a database to verify if the calling number is a known spam or scam number. If a positive match is detected, an informational message is displayed on the user's phone allowing them to reject the call.

"Global fraudulent call activities increased substantially since the outbreak of the pandemic, which led to the launch of this initiative," said Mathias Grünwald, Director Sales at RealNetworks. "We are excited about Vodafone's decision to partner with RealNetworks to take advantage of our leading anti-fraud solution KONTXT to protect their customers".

CallProtect will be provided for free to existing Vodafone Secure Net users in Germany. The pilot project will be active for six months starting from the launch of the CallProtect service. The goal of the pilot is to gain insights about user acceptance and assess the performance of the service.

Source: RealNetworks media announcement