CLINTON, N.Y. — Smart Carrier, a telecom-compliance manager and service provider, recently cut the ribbon on its new office in Clinton. After working for several years from the Mohawk Valley Community College thINCubator in Utica, it was time for the company to expand into space of its own says chief marketing officer and co-founder Rachelle […]
CLINTON, N.Y. — Smart Carrier, a telecom-compliance manager and service provider, recently cut the ribbon on its new office in Clinton.
After working for several years from the Mohawk Valley Community College thINCubator in Utica, it was time for the company to expand into space of its own says chief marketing officer and co-founder Rachelle Guitán, who operates the business with her husband Orlando Guitán.
Smart Carrier started as a part-time venture about 13 years ago as a telecom and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) consulting firm. In 2019, Orlando Guitán says they began to work on understanding the new Secure Telephone Identity Revisited/Signature-based Handing of Asserted Information Using toKENs (STIR/SHAKEN) protocol issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
All telecommunications providers were required to implement the protocol by June 2021. It’s a framework designed to validate the authenticity of phone calls in order to stop unauthorized spoof calls.
“It turns out there wasn’t any software to do this,” Orlando Guitán says. It took his company about four months to figure out a solution, working in partnership with Amazon Web Services, which provided some funding for the project.
Now Smart Carrier offers its solution to U.S.–based small- to medium-sized phone companies, call centers, and others so they can make the calls required for their businesses.
“Every phone call needs to have a token attached to it,” Guitán says. Smart Carrier provides that token for its clients, which lets the carrier at the other end of the call know that it’s a legitimate one.
“We like to keep the good guys in and the bad guys out,” Rachelle Guitán says. This helps Smart Carrier customers keep their contact rates high and helps them regain consumer trust after years of receiving junk robocalls and other spam calls trying to scam information.
In simple terms, Smart Carrier’s technology allows the automated call from your doctor’s office reminding you of an upcoming appointment to go through, she says, while blocking the “you’ve won a cruise” junk call. It also makes it easier for people to just go ahead and answer the call instead of having to screen every call in case it’s junk, she adds.
It may not seem like a lot, but Smart Carrier conducts about 25,000 token transactions every second.
With the new office space in Clinton, Smart Carrier is hoping to connect with more Oneida County businesses, Rachelle Guitán says.
Currently, Smart Carrier occupies two offices in shared space at 43 College St., with hopes of adding a third office soon, she says. The company also operates an office on Williams Street.
Smart Carrier has 13 employees, including contractors, and is also working hard to be involved in its new Mohawk Valley community. The company participated in several June events including a blood drive, a benefit for the Neighborhood Center, and the Heart Run & Walk. It also sponsored a Clinton Little League Community Day in conjunction with the Utica Blue Sox.
Smart Carrier’s solutions also include Smart Caller ID, AI answering detection in conjunction with Khomp International, and more.