launcht BM and major Spanish telecommunications firm Telefónica have partnered to apply blockchain technology to managing international mobile phone call traffic. Telefónica is the seventh largest telecom company in the world by market capitalization, valued at $51 billion according to Forbes. The company carries out communications business in 17 countries, with 343 million customers.
The collaboration with IBM aims to streamline certain Telefónica business processes and address various challenges in the field, including the reliability and transparency of information registered from different networks when routing international calls. Specifically, Telefónica plans to use the IBM Blockchain Platform for tracking the certainty and traceability of each international call and related data, such as origin, destination, and duration.
In addition, the platform will be applied in building a network of peers consisting of operators, service providers, vendors, and other parties. Per the release, access to the platform will be available for all participants in the chain. The project will also purportedly help Telefónica identify fraudulent activity as well as address issues like dispute resolution, commercial loss due to uncollected revenues, or discrepancies in information.
