International Roaming Explained
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International roaming explained Latin America Contents 1. Mobile roaming explained................. 1 2. Mobile roaming in Latin America..... 5 3. Price trends........................................ 11 4. Impact of regulation......................... 13 5. Best practice...................................... 15 3 1. Mobile roaming explained International mobile roaming The most common international roaming is a service that allows mobile services are: users to continue to use their Voice: Making and receiving calls to mobile phone or other mobile or from home country, visited country device to make and receive or a third country, while abroad voice calls and text messages, SMS: Sending and receiving text browse the internet, and send messages to or from home country, and receive emails, while visiting visited country or a third country, another country. while abroad Roaming extends the coverage of the Email: Reading and replying to home operator’s retail voice and SMS emails while abroad services, allowing the mobile user to Mobile broadband: Using mobile continue using their home operator devices or dongles to access the phone number and data services within internet, including downloading another country. The seamless extension images, MP3s, films and software, of coverage is enabled by a wholesale while abroad roaming agreement between a mobile user’s home operator and the visited Applications: Using mobile mobile operator network. The roaming applications while abroad that require agreement addresses the technical and mobile data, such as location-based commercial components required to services and language translators. enable the service. International mobile roaming is one of a wider range of communications services offered to mobile users while travelling abroad, which also include hotel services, Wi-Fi, national “travel” SIMs, and visited operator SIMs. 1 How mobile roaming works When a mobile user is abroad and a visited mobile network. The visited turns their mobile device on, the mobile network picks up the connection from device attempts to communicate with the user’s mobile, recognises whether Initiated call Received call Visited International Home Receiver’s operator transit operator home services operator Figure 1.1 Overview of international roaming technology and operations To explain roaming in more detail, more than one operator in the same visited Figure 1.2 the shows commercial and country, which in this case is Visited technical details for international mobile Operator A and a second network, Visited roaming. The diagram focuses on the Operator B. As a result, Mobile User A international roaming wholesale and can call home using either visited operator networks, both of which use international retail arrangements, for simplicity. transit services to carry the call back to The mobile user (Mobile User A) has an Mobile User A’s home country. international roaming service with their Mobile User A pays a retail price to Home home operator (Home Operator) and Operator for the roaming service and is automatically connected to a visited does not pay Visited Operator A. Provided network (Visited Operator A) while Mobile User B is not also roaming, they roaming. Mobile User A is automatically will not incur any extra charges to receive granted access to Visited Operator A’s a call from, or to make calls to Mobile network when arriving in the visited User A. country by an exchange of a data between Home Operator and Visited Operator Visited Operator A sends transferred A, where Visited Operator A confirms account procedure (TAP) files to a Mobile User A is a roaming customer with clearing house which forwards them to Home Operator. As such, the wholesale the Home Operator. TAP files are used for roaming agreement between Visited billing of calls while roaming. Operator A and Home Operator specifies Home Operator can then pay Visited how this data is to be provided to the Operator A the wholesale charges as per visited operator. Home Operator usually call volumes in the TAP file and rates in has wholesale roaming agreements with the wholesale roaming agreement. 2 Mobile Mobile User B User A RETAIL it is registeredHome with its system, and The visitedVisited network also requestsVisited service attemptsoperator to identify the user’s home informationoperator from A the homeoperator network B network. If there is a roaming agreement about the user, such as whether the between the home network Clearingand one house phone being used is lost or stolen, and WHOLESALE of the mobile networks in the visited whether the mobile device is authorised Roaming country, the call is routed by theagreement visited for international use. If the phone is network towards an international transit authorised for use, the visited network International network (Figure 1.1). The internationalcarrier creates a temporary subscriber record transit network carrier is responsible for the device and the home network for theRoaming call delivery services to the destinationTraffic flow Revenueupdates flow its subscriberData exchange record on where network. Once this is done, the the device is located so if a call is made to destination network will connect the call. the phone it can be appropriately routed. Mobile Mobile User B User A RETAIL Home Visited Visited operator operator A operator B Clearing house WHOLESALE Roaming agreement International carrier Roaming services Traffic flow Revenue flow Data exchange Figure 1.2 Commercial links required for international mobile roaming Visited Operator A pays an international pays Home Operator a termination carrier (International Carrier) for carrying rate for terminating the call in the the call and handing over the call to home country. Home Operator. International Carrier 3 Data roaming With the increasing popularity of feature (MB), which refers to the volume of phones and smartphones, the use of data transmitted for the service mobile data services while roaming is used. Data traffic volumes can vary set to continue to grow exponentially. significantly depending on the type Mobile data services are typically and use of different data services. measured in kilobytes (KB) or megabytes Activity Data traffic use One hour of instant messaging 0.25 – 1 MB One hour of web browsing 1.5 – 25 MB Download 100 emails 1 – 10 MB 100 minutes talk on VoIP video calling Around 50 MB Download one photo 0.05 – 2 MB Download one MP3 3 – 8 MB One software download 70 – 800 MB Download one film 700 – 1500 MB Streaming one hour of video 250 – 500 MB Streaming one hour of audio 50 – 150 MB Figure 1.3: Mobile data traffic volumes1 There are significant differences in the size estimates, as file size depends on the type of data, quality, and file length. For example, high definition and DVD quality streaming consumes greater amounts of mobile data than standard video or audio streaming. 4 2. Mobile roaming in Latin America Regionally, the mobile environment significantly across the region. As a is growing, both in subscribers and result, up to 90 per cent of roaming traffic data traffic; however, roaming services from the region is business-related.4 are still emerging. Latin American Within Latin America, there are around countries are in different stages of 500 operator roaming agreements and economic development, with significant this number is growing. As commerce differences in inflation rates, currency and tourism develop, more roaming exchanges, labor costs and GDP per routes are becoming economically capita. GDP per capita in some countries viable. Roaming traffic flows are mainly is up to 12 times higher than in others.2 across a number of key routes, although Additionally, compared with regions exact traffic patterns vary from operator such as Europe, roaming penetration in to operator (Figure 2.2). Latin America is small. Just seven per cent of the region’s population travelled Both inter-regional and intra-regional abroad in 2011 (Figure 2.1), with factors roaming are major contributors to the such as greater distances between Latin American roaming market. The countries and less affordable travel in exact traffic pattern can vary significantly the region contributing to this lower rate from operator to operator, depending on of travel. Roaming use and its relevance factors such as the country, consumer as a service for mobile users varies base and market position. 65% 35% 10% 7% Europe North America Asia Pacific Latin America Figure 2.1 Ratio of international trips to population %, 20113 5 North America Portugal Spain Mexico Honduras Guatemala Nicaragua Venezuela El Salvador Columbia Ecuador Latin America Peru Brazil Paraguay Chile Uruguay Argentina Main inter-regional roaming routes Main inter-regional roaming routes Main intra-regional roaming routes: tourism Main intra-regional roaming routes: tourism MainMain intra-regional intra-regional roaming roaming routes: business business North America Portugal Spain Mexico Honduras Guatemala Nicaragua Venezuela El Salvador Colombia Ecuador Latin America Peru Brazil Paraguay Chile Uruguay Argentina Figure 2.2 Main inter-regional and major intra-regional roaming routes for Latin America5 6 Regional challenges Few agreements have been reached to prevent double taxation in Latin America As the Latin American market and some operators report that tax develops, structural and technical treaties in existence are operationally barriers must be addressed. difficult to implement. In addition, Introducing roaming regulation many countries levy other local taxes, while