Interview – Meeting the future roaming challenge

With data roaming set to increase through 2010, but with traditional roaming revenues under  threat, operators need roaming solutions that match their business needs. Comfone CEO Mathias Prüssing tells Keith Dyer how an integrated roaming service can do just that

Keith Dyer:
Mathias, readers may know Comfone as a roaming service provider but they may not appreciate the scope of your activities.

Mathias Prüssing:
Comfone has achieved its aim of becoming a full service provider in the roaming market, offering a complete portfolio of roaming management services. It ranges from roaming enablement through our hub solutions, including our WeRoam wireless IP and Key2roam hubs, to our Advanced Signalling network and our in-house Clearing capabilities. We also offer 2G and 3G data roaming management through our GRX service with connections to over 500 networks worldwide.

Our goal is to harness the synergy of all these elements by providing a one-stop-shop approach to customers.  We are in a very strong position, as a full service provider with extensive hubbing expertise, to meet the evolving roaming requirements of our customers.

Keith Dyer:
One aspect facing operators in 2010 will be the increase in data roaming. Do you think that traditional roaming relationships will be able to handle the more complex nature of data roaming?

Mathias Prüssing:
We know from mobile network operators that data roaming traffic is presenting them with a complex set of hurdles which they require help with. Therefore the move to data roaming motivates us, as a service provider, to be even more innovative in finding further simple and robust solutions for the upcoming data roaming challenges.

We already provide roaming solutions for GPRS and 3G data traffic with our GRX service which is handling increasing traffic. However, in response to operator feedback, we have also designed a roadmap to focus our energy on the demands this growth in IP traffic will bring. We have enormously simplified data roaming by adding data to our hub model. Now our customers will not only be able to centralise their voice and messaging businesses on our hub, but also their IP data traffic. Since we began integrating our data business onto our Key2roam hub, different operators have confirmed their data roaming needs and have entered into trials with us.

We pioneered the hub concept and because we are also in control of a centralised signalling platform, we are able to provide full service guarantees – indeed we already meet the full requirements of 133 live operators on our Key2roam hub, supporting over 2,800 live relations and approximately 100 live GPRS relations.

Keith Dyer:
What advantages will adding this data capability to the hub have?

Mathias Prüssing:
There are several. The main advantage is that operators will be able to centralise their data businesses on our hub. In their traditional voice businesses, an operator may have bilateral relations with 400 other players – and those relations can be managed to provide ongoing revenue streams. On the other hand the set up and management of data roaming is generally more complex. Data roaming traffic is email, internet messenger, browsing on the internet and entertainment and requires extensive bandwidth.

Our hub data roaming solution allows operators to reduce the overall complexity, provides them with powerful networks and enables them to focus on the end-customer instead of inter-operator relationships.

Added to that, data roaming relations often do not exist yet. Most carriers see their current relations and think there is no reason to change to a hub. However, operators are attempting to find new value propositions for their customers, whether it is through guaranteed SLAs or providing high quality services to different types of customers. We can provide the technology expertise to assist them with this, all in one integrated offer.

At the moment, business customers are most attractive for operators, someone who is travelling a lot and wants a high quality data roaming solution but also needs to be able to manage the expense of that. As well as this market, I believe that the consumer roaming business will also grow, as more and more people want to take their home data environment, such as messaging, social networks and favourite services, with them when they travel. Anytime, anywhere data roaming access is becoming the standard of service expected by consumers today.

Keith Dyer:
How does this change in usage translate into the services you can offer?

Mathias Prüssing:
Well, this change will drive the need for the basic roaming service enablers; the connections that hub access brings, as well as control of signalling and clearing. What is of more importance however and where we can differentiate ourselves is that operators will need to optimise their traffic and meet marketing requirements for stable, reliable connections and SLAs with fast implementation times. Added to this, operators want access to value-added services such as business optimisation tools so that the roaming manager is able to steer roaming traffic, to reduce costs and increase roaming revenues.

This is why it is so important to be an integrated service provider rather than just providing access and connectivity. We applied our extensive signalling knowledge in order to provide reporting tools for operators to access their data and better control what’s going on in their networks. For instance, with our reporting tools they can react to seasonal peaks, perhaps by providing special offers to end-users. We also offer technical tools that run rating simulations to illustrate how a rating change might impact ongoing revenues for an operator. Additionally, we offer roaming marketing tools which make it easier for our customers to flexibly steer their roaming business and ensure revenues by providing increased transparency of the impact of their marketing activities.

Keith Dyer:
Added to these changes in data roaming, operators are looking at increasing “data offload” strategies, such as WiFi. How will this affect your business?

Mathias Prüssing:
We have our Wireless IP hub solution, WeRoam, so WiFi is also part of our data story. We have over 63,000 aggregated hotspots, making it possible for customers to have consistent access to that environment. We are also supporting the facilitation of WiMax-to-WiFi roaming. Although traditionally operators tend to think in terms of GSM/3G/HSPA technology, they will consider WiFi and WiMax as they face future demands for bandwidth.

We have seen our WeRoam traffic increase 30-40% over the last year, so we think this is a real opportunity for the future. In my opinion there is 2G/3G/ HSPA on the one hand and at the same time there’s WiFi. I think we will see them become complementary, rather than competitive. That makes our integrated offering all the more attractive.

Keith Dyer:
And it seems no discussion of roaming can be complete without reference to the legislative environment within Europe…

Mathias Prüssing:
In a way, yes. It’s a fact that all mobile network operators are experiencing price erosion and restrictions resulting from EU legislation, so that’s something that we just have to face. That’s why analysts see 10-15% growth in roaming volume but no equivalence in revenues. This limited revenue growth is driving the view that roaming is all about deriving the benefit of economies of scale, to compensate or over-compensate for price erosion. As a leading hub provider, it is important for Comfone to take the current market situation into account in its strategy and ensure our customers achieve ecomonies of scale in their roaming businesses.

For this reason, Comfone’s value added services play a key role – they allow operators to offer bundles, flat fees, and other solutions which will enable them to derive increasing roaming value from their customers. It is also important for operators to take control of all elements of their roaming business; such as revenue assurance and financial management. That’s why we have taken our clearing capability in house again. We can do clearing ourselves and not just buy it in from another competitor.

Keith Dyer:
So you are confident that current operator needs around roaming, from pressure on voice revenues, to increasing data traffic, to complementary WiFi or WiMax strategies, all point to your vision of an integrated, full service provider?

Mathias Prüssing:
It is important that Comfone is recognised as an integrated solution provider and not seen only as a signalling or hubbing provider. Customers tell us that they are surprised by our capabilities and are very impressed with what we can do in hubbing, signalling and clearing. They appreciate that we can cover every element of roaming and also bring a lot additional capabilities and value to their products on top of that.

Operators have asked us to help them take control of their revenues, to help them manage the growth in data roaming. As a full service provider offering all roaming elements in our portfolio, we have the added advantage of being able to act flexibly and independently. All of our operations are in Bern and nothing is outsourced. We have full control over the quality of our services and solutions and we can go the extra mile for the customer that others cannot, providing our customers with the integrated solutions they need.

Keith Dyer:
Mathias, thank you.