Did your father ever tell you to do things yourself when you wanted it done right and become a success? (at least for your own purposes). I believe that’s true and its also important in business that promotes openness and transparency.
An example of the dynamics nowadays that roaming is experiencing big changes are still to come but the trend is that there is a concern from mobile operators to more efficiently use the resources available and optimize business models to avoid subscribers turning their backs in a rage caused by desperation to get fair tariffs. One can say there are some good options available to focus efforts in the right direction and I believe the concept of a multi-IMSI roaming Hub is among those.
The solution offers a whole new model to MNOs of all types (Full MVNO, MVNO light and operators). The main difference between the traditional dual-IMSI Roaming Hub model is that here the full MVNO is offered 2 options to obtain new revenues, buying from the Roaming Hub or selling to the Roaming Hub.
In North America is where this transition has found the required support form regulatory bodies and groups from the Industry. Below you find a simple description I prepared in order to show you briefly the concept and benefits in each case.
Before going further, the concept shares the benefits offered by the dual-IMSI Roaming Hub in terms of increased revenue, by accessing new roaming partners in one-shot and saving costs by reducing the administrative costs in clearing house and settling procedures as well as testing resource allocation. But the real beauty lays on the fact that by becoming a member of the hub, the full MVNO is capable of buying and selling his IOTs by having access to a trading platform from the IOT offered by all hub members.
Buying
This is done by selecting outbound in one, several or all foreign networks multi-IMSI Roaming Hub offers as its members. Each new Member / network participant provides its IMSI and becomes available to be used by any member. Then the Roaming Hub takes the role of a dealer and offers the right place for optimised negotiation on outbound roaming tariffs all around the world.
The subscriber keeps his home MSISDN for all services, Voice, SMS, data, and access seamlessly like at home. He is controlled by home HLR like in the usual Roaming Hub. The operator is in control of his outbound roaming offers, something which not all networks currently allow.
The pre-negotiated IOT rates available on RH trading platform, are often lower than what is offered by competing dual-IMSI solutions.
Selling
Having negotiated, a previously discounted IOT becomes in this model an attractive asset to be leveraged for the full MVNO by offering those discounted tariffs to other members like MVNOs in other areas of the world that have no access to them. It turns in a new revenue stream generator that allows new profits in wholesale operations that were not available in the old model. I On top of that, it improves the negotiation power of the selling network for increases in outbound traffic to offer to roaming partners.
Until few years ago, there was only the traditional Roaming Hub solution and the target market for the vendors were those who just started operations and needed a fast footprint with low admin costs. With the new concept and the strategy where open connectivity,wholesale alliances and cooperation are driving business, a platform to buy and sell your roaming capabilities at a fair price seems to be a wise decision.