Roaming hubs have tremendous potential in assisting operators to grow roaming revenues and can rapidly bring value to Latin American communication service providers. (CSPs)
This was the key point highlighted by Miguel Calvo, managing director of Link2One, when he spoke at the GSMA North America and Latin America conference held last month.
Roaming hubs simplify international roaming connectivity by enabling CSPs to connect via one route to multiple partners worldwide. One signaling route enables multiple roaming relationships, while one connection provides voice, data, CAMEL and SMS roaming services to supported networks. Roaming hubs also serve to complement existing bilateral relationships with additional destinations that traditionally would not have been financially or logistically viable. In a presentation entitled ‘Roaming Hubbing- Overview and Business Case,’ Miguel discussed Open Connectivity (OC), a GSMA initiative that consists of three solutions – Global Roaming Quality (GRQ), SMS Hubbing and Roaming Hubbing.
The goal of the OC initiative is to improve the efficiency of establishing and maintaining bilateral interworking and roaming agreements. OC also aims to define and facilitate operator implementations of solutions to establish new agreements quickly and easily. Considering the complexity of roaming, the expenses incurred and various other issues associated with the traditional bilateral model, roaming hubbing is a solution that appeals to all operators.
Roaming hubs are the best solution available to CSPs who are looking to rapidly grow their roaming businesses, whilst keeping full control over their costs, strategy and business development. We believe that Link2One, a joint initiative between MACH and Telefonica, has the necessary competencies and the experience to grow the roaming hubbing market globally.
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