'Inter-operable tariff rescues operators' roaming profits'

What are the key roaming trends? What is the roaming revenue?

There is a major shift to data roaming, of late. Internationally, the operators are more concerned about profit optimization and about offering a better roaming experience to the subscribers. And the operators are also concerned about minimizing costs. Though international roaming is increasing drastically but the prices are getting slashed and hence the profits are dwindling.

The regulator is pushing things rigorously than compared to past years because it has to ensure subscribers' interest, market dynamism, fair play, and ensure governance models is being adhered to by all the players. But good margins have shrunk and regulations are controlling the roaming charges, due to which the profits have gone down by 1/6. This has given rise to more competition and more complex scenarios.

To enhance profits, the operators are now left with 2 options-to optimize at the wholesale level, ie, through IOTs (Inter-operable Tariffs) mechanism; this mechanism has the ability to rescue operators' roaming profits. The other is to optimize the revenue from the new innovative data services, transparent plans, social networking, etc, with the help of technology.

According to a study by MACH, it is estimated that 48% of the roamers switch off their data while on roaming. From India, 70% of the consumers switch off their data due to the bill shock and there is no perceived transparency about charging. With real-time billing systems and data plans, the operators can encash this opportunity. As bill shock leads to unhappy customers, increased churn, class action lawsuits, and government regulations; the operators are attempting to offer more transparent solutions so that consumers do not get bill shocks.

Roaming revenues are estimated to be 8% of overall telecom revenues, globally. In India, it is estimated to be around 10-12%.

How are things for MACH in this chaotic telecom industry in India?

The decision in terms of investing in Indian context is obviously slow. They have to handle legacy systems, manage billing systems, and changing customer behavior. There is an inflex on roaming, they cannot over rule as in-roamer is more sophisticated. The operators have no choice but to deploy the technologies to handle complexities. We have seen lot of uptake of our solutions.

Our entire solution portfolio is technology agnostics and it is 4G ready as well and we are making it work for IPX. IPX is the next revolution. Some countries like Norway, Sweden, and Japan are already building on IPX. IPX delivers 100 Mbps speed on mobile. Our solution portfolio include-data offloading solution, data roaming engine, data optimization, applied business intelligence suite, fraud protection and revenue assurance portfolio, real-time charging, policy management, etc. And our solutions are delivered on opex model.