ROAMING SERVICES: Roam(ancing) Revenues

Over the past few years, roaming has proven a high margin
service that can account for more than 15% of an operator's overall revenue. A
significant point however, is that this big slice of turnover can be attributed
to a very small group of people-in roaming the old adage of '80% of my
revenue comes from 20% of my customers' holds very true. The bulk of this
revenue comes from business users, who will generally:

• be on a company phone and hence not worry about the expense
  of roaming calls, to the same degree as a tourist might;

• make long-duration calls at all different times of the
  day, depending on their working time-zones; and

• utilize many bolt-on network services such as voicemail,
  SMS, and GPRS-enabled services in the course of their day-to-day business.

As networks transition to 2.5 and 3G, the same group of users
are very likely to become 'power' IP-data users, be it for checking stock
availability on the move, or simply picking up their e-mail. Access to
always-on, higher-bandwidth data is a significant business enabler for these
high-value corporate users.

Keep the Customer Connected

These users demand the same quality of service while roaming abroad that
they get at home, and they will hold their own operator at fault when problems
occur-particularly if their friends or travelling companions are on a
different network and not experiencing the same difficulties.

These
factors mean that it is firmly in the operator's interest to: proactively test
and monitor roaming traffic, ensuring that both their own subscribers abroad
(outbound) and foreign roamers trying to attach to their own network (inbound)
are able to connect and make good use of the service.

There are many means by which an operator can achieve this.
Firstly, they need a good 'capture' of inbound roamers. This means, ensuring
that there is strong coverage at airports, railway stations, etc.-all the
places where business travelers are likely to first switch on their phones.
Active test-traffic injection can ensure that these specific cells are operating
at peak efficiency. And, drive-test systems can highlight any potential areas of
weak coverage in the surrounding area, where roamers could be lost to the
competition, e.g., on main thoroughfares while traveling from the airport to the
city. Operators also want their outbound roamers to connect to their chosen
roaming partners, with whom they are likely to have more favorable interconnect
charges and support agreements. This can be influenced using 'welcome' SMS
messages, which indicate the preferred network, and international customer care
and remote voicemail numbers to the visitor. Welcome messages are made possible
by examining the signaling that occurs between networks when subscribers roam.

Each network has a number of fixed interconnect points for
the exchange of signaling with other networks. When roamers switch on their
phones, a series of signaling exchanges occur between their home network and the
remote network. This exchange updates their current location, authenticates
them, and ensures that they are assigned the temporary local 'roaming number'
that can be used to subsequently route calls to them. GPRS and 3G subscribers
may also establish a packet network connection at this point, depending on their
handset setup.

The welcome-message system typically monitors the location
update messages. When an operator's subscribers become outbound roaming
subscribers, the system can determine which network they have roamed into and
sent them an appropriate message. Similarly location updates from inbound
roamers can be used to send them a message in their home language, perhaps to
promote local services.

The home operator can also use this exchange of signaling to
spot problems that are affecting roamers and take action. For example, if a
partner network has not provisioned enough temporary numbers for inbound
roamers, then one particular internetwork exchange will fail.

The operator can look for occurrences of this type of failure
and then proactively advise the partner network of the issue. In the same vein,
if there is a complete absence of SMS signaling from one network, this may be a
strong indication of a routing issue that is affecting the home network's
outbound roamers, as well as the partner network's own subscribers who may not
be able to text abroad.

In the 2.5 and 3G worlds, the same kind of rules apply. The
roamer attaches to a serving GPRS support node (GSN) in the foreign network,
which connects to the home network's gateway GSN via a third-party GPRS
roaming exchange-effectively an international IP backbone.

An IP data tunnel is created between these two nodes,
allowing the subscribers to access the IP network just as if they were with the
home network. The operator does, to an extent, have more control over its
subscribers abroad, since 2.5 and 3G IP traffic is routed back via the home
network. However, the introduction of a third party into the equation means
there is a higher likelihood of points of failure en-route. Once again,
monitoring of the signaling that creates the data tunnel, allows the operator to
spot problems or absences between their network and others.

In both 2G and 3G, operators can additionally backup
monitoring with active test traffic injection. Deployment of remote test nodes
in key roaming partners allows them to switch in different test subscriber
identities, and perform a series of tests to exercise both voice and data
services.

Using this approach, key customer-centric performance data
(e.g., attach latency) can be collected along with service availability
measures, in a truly end-to-end manner. If an operator is planning to launch its
MMS service, for example, it could switch in profiles for prepaid, contract,
roaming not-allowed, or any other subscriber profile into the remote test unit,
and then initiate a test on the picture messaging service. At the point the
profile goes active, the signaling exchange can be monitored at the
interconnects, as above. Utilizing different profiles allows specific scenarios
to be tried and tested, which can give additional indications of when problems
are occurring and where they lie.

Making the Money

So, now I am capturing a higher rate of roamers, attracted by my
high-quality network. I am welcoming all of them individually with appropriate
messages, and ensuring that they can talk, text, and surf with confidence during
their stay. Maximizing revenues from this vital group of subscribers needs good
intelligence on: where they are roaming to, what are the services of most
importance to them, how often are they switching the networks, which of my
partners aren't performing well, etc.

Availability of the monitored data, from the interconnect
points, provides the key for good business intelligence as well as operational
excellence. By warehousing this data, and providing online analytical processing
tools for effective mining of it, an operator can look for key trends and use
this information to its strategic advantage. As the 3G world gathers pace, any
competitive differentiation will be fundamental to subscriber uptake and
retention. Roamers are the key group who will look to 3G as an enabler for their
businesses and by their loving care, the prepared operator will not see the
roaming revenues roam away to the competitors.

Cameron Stewart, business development manager, Assurance
Solutions Division, Agilent Technologies vadmail@cybermedia.co.in