Release of 21.01.2014
The 3 assessments to make the right decision.
- 244 LTE networks have been commercially launched in 92 countries
- 499 operators in 143 countries are investing in LTE. This is made up of 448 firm operator commitments to build LTE networks in 134 countries, plus 51 additional operators engaged in various trials, studies, etc. in a further 9 countries.
- From amongst the committed operators, 244 have commercially launched services, which is 78% more than a year ago.
The figures on the LTE market, which have been published by The Global mobile Suppliers Association this November, are truly impressive:
It is obvious, that it is now necessary for operators in the LTE ecosystem to take the next step and offer LTE data roaming to their end customers. To provide this, operators need to make a strategic decision on their approach to signaling and data transport. But which solution is the most suitable one? What are the economic drivers of each one? How to achieve a fast time-to-market? These questions were bugging us too, when we were planning the LTE Data Roaming for our own group, which has retail subsidiaries in 8 countries in CEE. In order to solve these questions, we conducted an in depth research on this topic this year.
The following 3 assessments helped us to make the right decision:
1. How to reach global connectivity?
Given the accelerating number of LTE networks, operators need to decide on their rollout plan and a technical approach to achieve their goal in a cost and time efficient way. Direct peerings are one way to connect with other MNOs, often ending up with a meshd-up network that proves quite costly. If you only want to offer LTE data roaming in a few neighboring countries, then direct peerings might nevertheless be fine for you. But if you want to offer your end customers global connectivity, an international carrier´s IPX service might be an interesting offer to consider, since you only need to setup and calculate for the connection to this carrier. But how do these solutions compare and what are the determinants behind that? The selected solution should scale well with the increase in traffic and the number of roaming partners. Also other services which you might offer in the future, like Voice over LTE or RCS should be taken into account. IPX has been designed to specifically address the varying needs of the different services to transport. Are you prepared for the future?
2. Do you need your own Signaling Service?
Diameter as a protocol is pretty much standardized. But still, vendor specific flavors and operator adjustments are not to be underestimated. Routing and security aspects are further specialized tasks that need to be accomplished. You should also consider that technical trials and testing are needed for every roaming destination that you want to connect. These requirements multiply by the number of direct peerings. Diameter-Hub providers offer services to address these needs, leveraging their experience, connectivity, and infrastructure. Operators need to evaluate the benefits of those two options to decide on a solution which addresses their needs.
3. What position in the value chain do you want to take?
Like in most decisions on technical services, you need to decide how deeply you want or need to be involved into the fulfillment of this process. Besides the investment costs, also the costs for operations have to be taken in account. Outsourcing parts like the Diameter Edge Agent may help to improve your time to market, but potential complexity, security and legal issues must be kept in mind.
We hope you found these hints on how to approach a make-or-buy decision for LTE Data Roaming helpful! If you would like to read more, please download the study that we made together with Booz & Company via the form below!