Executive summary:
Effective roaming management is important to any mobile operator to ensure that potential revenue from incoming foreign roamers is not being lost to competitors. Similarly it is important to maximize the amount of revenue generated by roamers (foreign or own) by ensuring that international calls are being completed with a high success rate.
REWSS approaches roaming management from 2 perspectives:
- Identify patterns of foreign roamers frequently failing to register on the network
- Identify poor call completion rates for international calling
Identifying patterns of foreign roamers frequently failing to register on the network:
Map messaging data will identify problems with location updates and can therefore be used to know if foreign roamers are chronically failing to register on the network. In this scenario, the operator is likely losing potential revenue to competitors and the fix can often be achieved quickly once the problem has been identified.
Identifying poor call completion rates for international calls:
International calling success/failure rates can identify problems on the network where an operator is failing to maximize revenue due to poor services provided to roamers. In this scenario, the problem can often be tracked back to partner service providers who are not achieving adequate service levels on their networks as stipulated in roaming agreements.
Management by Exception:
And of course the best way to monitor for any changes in roaming activity will be to apply the “Management By Exception” concept. When any particular country or any particular PLMN is demonstrating uncharacteristically poor performance regarding LU or international calling then REWSStools® can draw focus to the offender visually in the GUI and also via automated alerts.
The value for the operator:
Roaming charges is a significant source of revenue for any operator and as such, great emphasis should be placed on maximizing its potential. The inclusion of the roaming manager in REWSStools® would provide the operator with an ideal tool to not only identify scenarios where potential revenue is being lost to competitors, but also to ensure that existing revenue streams from roamers are being maximized.
How it works:
Monitoring of Map Messaging Data for Unnecessary Failures
- Monitor the success/failure rates for location updates
- Are too many location updates failing?
- What is the common denominator?
- Are most failures occurring for roamers from the same country?
- Are most failures occurring for roamers from the same foreign PLMN?
Monitoring International Calling Success/Failure Rates
- Are roamers on the network able to make international calls?
- Are the calls going through or are they failing too frequently?
- What about an operator’s own subscribers roaming abroad on foreign networks?
- Key performance indicators such as Answer Seizure Rates provide this type of information.
VLR as a data source:
REWSS can pull data from the VLRs to see how foreign roamers are performing on the operator’s own network.
HLR as a data source:
REWSS can pull data from the HLRs to see where an operator’s own subscribers in the world. Map messaging statistics can show the LU success rate for those roamers.
Return of Investment:
Ensuring that foreign roamers are able to successfully register on the network instead of being lost to competitors is a double win for the operator. They can bolster their own revenue streams while denying their competition of any freebies. Maximizing the ability of all roamers to place international calls also poses obvious financial benefits for the operator.
The performance statistics and reports would facilitate easy identification of chronically problematic countries and/or PLMNs allowing the roaming department to focus their efforts on resolving and optimizing those issues.
Applying the Management By Exception concept to roaming KPIs would ensure rapid reaction to any new faults that might detrimentally impact this important revenue stream along with keeping roaming contractual agreements in place.
Conclusion:
Revenue generated from roamers is an important part of every mobile operator’s business model. As such it is essential to monitor and maximize the potential from every roamer, foreign and own, on the network at all times. The Roaming Manager empowers the operator to maintain perspective over the activities of all roamers and to protect this important revenue stream. |
