GSM roaming: a regional view; different regions mean different roaming service priorities for mobile users. Operators, looking for market differentiation, need to take note

Telecommunications International, Feb, 2004 by John Hoffman

Back in the drawing-board days of the GSM standard, the point of the technology was to enable cross-border communications. Countries would allocate the same frequencies and adopt the same technology to provide GSM users with a service that would enable them to keep the same telephone number in every country that offered GSM. GSM's USP was the ability to roam.

GSM roaming today offers the convenience of a single number, a single bill and, theoretically at least, a single handset with worldwide access to some 205 countries and territories.

More services, please

As handsets become ever more laden with features, subscribers are fast learning to personalise their interface and their services, both for efficiency and credibility. Subscribers want to replicate that chosen 'home environment' wherever they may be--and therein lies the operator challenge. Keeping today's mobile customer happy requires more than providing basic availability of service while roaming--it's about seamlessly transferring the capability of the services they know and use at home to when they are abroad.

Extending roaming services for both voice and data is a key focus of the GSM Association, and its membership meetings now include a dedicated roaming facilitation forum for operators to bilaterally negotiate and execute roaming agreements for both voice and data. This autumn's meeting in Los Angeles included a lively operator debate on the positioning, importance and marketing of roaming services. Striking regional differences emerged as the operators demonstrated that the days of technology for technology's sake have been replaced by the desire to provide services relevant to customer needs.

Regional perspectives

Europe

As the world's largest regional subscriber base--and the most mature--Europe's take on the roaming debate is based on more than ten years of providing commercial GSM service. Roaming is becoming increasingly important in the battle to win the lucrative corporate accounts. Operators know that unless their offering includes 'total' connectivity they are at a disadvantage when competing for the customer.

However, in Europe, as in some other mature regions, the balance of roamers has changed from business to consumer, and the market has moved to being mass, but less experienced. Subscribers may only travel outside their home network once a year, so segmentation and education are crucial in the battle to reduce churn.

Without proper marketing and customer profiling, there is a risk of draining increasingly stretched resources. Introducing data roaming requires more commercial and technical expertise, and education includes dealer programmes and billing integration. The market is there, but the figures need to make sense in terms of return on investment.

Middle East

In the Middle East, roaming is seen as a high priority for certain countries as a differentiator in the battle to win and retain customers. Subscriber segmentation has proved highly successful, with loyalty rewards such as lotteries and competitions, as well as customised packages such as SMS-only roaming, single country roaming, and receive-only roaming. These offerings help the subscriber to control costs and usage, and circumvent the regional requirement for a hefty deposit required from the subscriber before roaming is enabled.

India

India has a different issue--internal roaming is crucial with 21 different domestic networks, but international roaming is the feature that attracts corporate accounts. In India, roaming drives market leadership as it is an essential subscriber offering.

South Amercia

The youngest GSM markets are in South America, where roaming is accepted as important but not yet a high priority due to the focus on network construction in many countries. With any new business there is much to do, not least in dealing with the four frequency bands in the region, which boasts 900, 1800, 1900 and 850MHz.

Emphasis is being put on roaming services, and the region is in the enviable position of being able to conduct market research among its new roamers. It is accepted that roaming is a business in its own right that will benefit the operators as long as the customers have transparency and clarity of pricing structures.

Already this fledgling region is utilising broadcast SMS over the holiday period, providing information on the countries most visited by its subscribers, and handset loan and advice is readily available.

North America

North America, while slightly more mature in the GSM market, is sitting on a huge customer base that, in the main, does not travel. Instead, its focus is on inbound roaming customers, although offering outbound customer roaming is a major differentiator. Visitors to the US also benefit from shortcode dialling, which is the ability to use the same short numbers for voicemail, customer care and the like. The challenge here, as with other large markets, is in communicating to the roamer--at the moment the only channel is a welcome SMS from the visitor host network.