The process of verifying who a customer is and what they intend to do with voice service before and after onboarding, to keep illegal callers off the network.
In the voice industry, KYC means confirming that a customer is a real, identifiable business or person, understanding the kind of traffic they will send, and checking for warning signs before giving them the ability to place calls. Typical checks include business registration, physical address, beneficial owners, payment method, intended use case, expected volumes, and the source of any numbers they bring.
FCC rules require originating providers to take affirmative, effective measures to prevent new and renewing customers from using their networks to originate illegal calls, and providers describe these measures in their Robocall Mitigation Database filings. KYC is the core of that obligation. The level of scrutiny can reasonably scale with risk, so a high-volume outbound calling customer warrants more checks than a small office buying a handful of lines.
Good KYC continues after onboarding. Traffic should be compared against what the customer described, and significant changes in volume, destinations, or number usage should prompt a review. Records of what was checked, when, and by whom are as important as the checks themselves, because they are what a provider can show a regulator or traceback investigator later.
Why it matters to carriers
Most illegal robocall campaigns enter the network through a customer account that should not have been opened or should have been closed sooner. A documented, consistently applied KYC process protects your attestation decisions, gives you a defensible position during tracebacks, and is one of the first things regulators examine when they review a provider.