By Matt Dore, Sales Manager – Cloud & Infrastructure Partners, Gamma Communications
In this article, we’ll cover:
- Why telecoms fraud has become a front‑line issue for service providers and partners.
- What businesses and regulators often get wrong about collaboration and accountability.
- What ‘good’ looks like when the industry tackles fraud together.
The topic of compliance and fraud now sits at the heart of trust in business communications. It’s no longer a peripheral conversation for the telecoms industry, especially as the erosion of trust can be felt across service providers, partners and end customers.
As discussed at the Comms Council UK Fraud Summit 2026, phone numbers remain one of the most trusted identifiers in business. That trust is exactly what makes communications infrastructure so valuable to fraudsters. When people stop believing calls are legitimate, confidence in the entire channel breaks down.
What has changed since last year is context. With the UK government’s Fraud Strategy now published, the industry isn’t waiting around for clarity. Instead, it’s operating in a world where direction of travel is set, and execution matters.
What businesses often get wrong about fraud prevention
One of the most consistent messages from the summit was that fraud is rarely contained within a single organisation.
Modern fraud can cut across multiple providers. These external agents are adept at exploiting gaps in accountability and can move quickly when the barriers are raised.
The frustrating thing is that many organisations still try to solve it in isolation. When one provider tightens controls, focus is shifted to the next weakest point.
This dynamic of simply pushing the problem around is precisely why collaboration featured heavily in this year’s discussions. Without shared intelligence, strong governance and agreed frameworks for data sharing, the industry ends up duplicating effort while attackers adapt faster.
Fraud at the calls coal face
The ‘Fraud at the Calls Coal Face’ panel, which I had the pleasure to be on, focused on real world examples rather than policy. By following these genuine fraud cases through the supply chain, we were able to demonstrate how:
- Responsibility is distributed, not binary.
- Partners often inherit risk with limited visibility.
- Regulation impacts reality in unintended ways.
By moving away from theory and into real examples, we were able to make clear why no single party can ‘own’ fraud entirely.
Crucially, alignment wasn’t limited to partners and suppliers. The events Comms Council run bring competing service providers together and, despite being competitors, there’s still room to find common ground. This creates a strong signal that fraud is now recognised as an industry-wide structural challenge, rather than a commercial differentiator.
Intelligence sharing is the biggest opportunity – and challenge
The summit also highlighted clear progress in data-led fraud prevention. Sharing intelligence between organisations, third parties and government bodies all help to instill trust in numbering and encourage greater cooperation.
It was great to see how this had progressed since the Fraud Summit in 2025 but despite all the valuable information being created, a large volume of it isn’t being shared due to a lack of structure and strong sharing agreements.
Where frameworks are unclear, organisations understandably default to caution. The result is duplicated work, missed signals, and slower response times. None of which help deal with fraud incidents.
The consensus at this year’s Fraud Summit was clear: better intelligence sharing requires leadership, as opposed to just willingness.
The evolving fraud landscape
The cost implications of limiting fraud and managing cases is only increasing. Carriers need to be monitoring their traffic to identify patterns, while also identifying fraudulent behaviour as best they can.
While there is data to suggest a reduction in the number of fraud incidents, there’s a much higher value per attack. Fraudsters are now more patient and rely on deeper reconnaissance to understand their attacking methods. Simultaneously, there’s also a greater reliance on automation and AI.
That’s the reality of a tool like AI. While crucial in defence, particularly when identifying out-of-character behaviour, it’s now part of a fraudster’s arsenal. AI is now being deployed to defeat controls, monitor any changes in the business, and strike at the most opportune moment.
This rapid AI deployment only reinforces why static, rule-based approaches are no longer sufficient. What’s crucial to the industry now is collective insight.
This poses the question, what will AI companies do to mitigate fraudulent activity on their platforms? This is very much new ground.
The ‘front door’ challenge
Another recurring issue discussed at the summit was the trade‑off between fast, digital onboarding of new customers and robust fraud controls. Businesses want low-friction sign‑up experiences to leverage digital marketing and self-serve product, and customers expect this.
But those same pathways can be exploited by fraudsters. Using those same services to pose as real businesses to make phising attacks directly or through other services such as SMS, obfuscating the fraudulent behaviour through multiple channels. All this does is create two challenges around understanding traffic patterns and protecting the proverbial front door.
This balancing act between seamless sign-ups and an open door fraudsters is a costly one to manage and requires cross industry collaboration and data sharing if it going to be tackled.
Collaboration over isolation
Rather than presenting a single solution, the Fraud Summit reinforced a more realistic truth. Fraud cannot be solved in isolation.
If any provider is dealing with fraud alone, all they’re doing is duplicating existing work. While they’re duplicating efforts, they’re missing the insights needed that meant they could act sooner and more decisively.
From an industry perspective, a ‘good’ approach to fraud prevention looks like:
- Active participation in industry bodies.
- Open dialogue with regulators.
- Practical collaboration between providers and partners.
For Gamma, this means working alongside partners and industry groups. We all need to be advocating for proportionate regulation while continuing to remove fraudulent traffic wherever possible.
What matters is that trust in UK telecoms needs to be restored. The problem shouldn’t be pushed around, waiting for someone to take control of the situation.
Comms Council’s Fraud Summit 2026 marked significant progress and is by no means an endpoint in the quest to tackle fraud.
Quick Answers: Revelations Around Trust, Intelligence Sharing and Accountability at Fraud Summit 2026
Why is telecoms fraud so difficult to tackle?
Fraud typically spans multiple providers, jurisdictions and systems, making ownership and accountability complex.
How is AI changing telecoms fraud?
AI is being used on both sides. It’s being deployed to detect unusual traffic patterns and, increasingly, by fraudsters to bypass controls and automate attacks.
Why is collaboration so important in fraud prevention?
Fraud shifts quickly. Without shared intelligence, organisations raise barriers locally instead of reducing risk collectively.
What role do industry bodies play in fraud prevention?
They provide neutral forums for sharing intelligence, influencing regulation, and developing best practice across the sector.
