With SMS, WhatsApp, RCS and a variety of voice services all now part and parcel of enterprises’ communications portfolios, managing fragmented customer communication stacks across multiple service providers and tools has become an issue, and Airtel Business’s answer to the problem has launched to deliver “safe” enterprise messaging.
Airtel Business believes IQ Gateway is of critical importance when businesses have to manage fragmented customer communication stacks across multiple service providers and tools to reach their customers, with limited visibility into the real delivery of messages.
It adds that messages are often reported delivered even when they fail, while international OTP pumping by bots inflates bills. Moreover, managing pre-approved message templates is manual and often leads to mistakes. For enterprises, especially in sectors such as BFSI, government, e‑commerce and logistics, this not only hurts customer trust when consumers are targeted by scams, it also damages their brand reputation.
The system is described as India’s first business communications platform with telco-grade network intelligence that brings different customer communication channels onto one control plane. The platform is said to satisfy the DPDP compliance standard, which combines SMS, WhatsApp, RCS and voice communications and number verification (silent authentication) in one place.
Airtel IQ Gateway offers a single control centre for all business communications. It combines Airtel’s fraud protection with automatic integrations of native message template system (DLT), automatic switching to backup service providers, and intelligent routing across the various comms platforms.
The system can also be integrated with existing communication workflows and supplier ecosystems. For example, it can be installed on the enterprise’s premises or hosted on Airtel’s cloud as software as a service, based on customer preference and security requirements.
By using built-in network intelligence and trust layers for enterprise use, such as IQ Verify for fraud protection and silent authentication for SIM-based login – with capabilities like spotting fraudulent account creations, takeovers and artificial traffic spikes – Airtel says IQ Gateway can protect enterprises from fraud losses and billing spikes caused by industry-wide SMS pumping.
All of this, says Airtel Business, will enable enterprises to manage their business communications at scale, while protecting customer trust and making safety foundational to every customer interaction.
The system has now been launched nationwide through India, after successful trial deployments across select banks, financial institutions and other relevant industry collaborations.
Airtel Business CEO Sharat Sinha said the company had already demonstrated the power of network-grade fraud prevention in protecting millions of consumers across mobile and digital services, and that with IQ Gateway, it was extending this proven expertise to enterprises.
“As India accelerates towards a safe, inclusive digital economy, trust must become the foundation of every digital interaction,” he said. “Secure-by-design customer engagement is today the bedrock on which enterprises can scale with confidence … [Airtel Business is] enabling them to build brand trust while ensuring every customer conversation is safe, authenticated and resilient.
“By embedding trust at the network layer, we are enabling our enterprise customers, especially banks, government departments and logistics firms, to reduce cyber crime losses and strengthen the credibility of every customer interaction. This is a decisive step towards a safer digital future for India, where citizens and businesses can transact and engage with equal confidence.”
