“Going green” is quickly becoming a global trend for businesses, resulting in reduced energy costs and attracting positive consumer attention.p>“Going green” is quickly becoming a global trend for businesses, resulting in reduced energy costs and attracting positive consumer attention.
Choose a Hybrid
Hybrid cars are gaining in popularity because they reduce pollution and harmful emissions while lowering gas expenditures.
Mobile operators have also been choosing hybrids, albeit of a different kind. Hybrid SoR solutions have recently been surging in popularity. These hybrid solutions are comprised of two key components:
• Over-the-air (OTA) interfaces and correction measures.
• SS7 for redirection
limits, patterns and abnormal situations.
Operators select and prioritise roaming partners based on criteria such as inter-operator tariff (IOT) agreements, group operator alliances, quality of service (QoS), and coverage and traffic volume. Therefore, it is in the best interests of the operators that their outbound roaming subscribers select a preferred network in each visited country, and yet existing methods are limited in controlling network selection.
Effective hybrid steering solutions should be GSMA-compliant and transparent to subscribers and roaming partners.
They should also provide strong incentives for operator groups and preferred network partners and serve as a valuable aid in roaming agreement negotiations.
The current economic situation has caused many operators to examine the efficiency of their SoR solutions. Operators are strongly considering SoR solutions, which have been proven to extend coverage by 10-20 per cent. These operators seek to more accurately achieve roaming distribution; steer non-compliant handsets that occasionally do not respond to SS7-based steering (rejects); reduce the extra traffic of international signaling without compromising steering performance; and improve subscriber user experience by reducing the necessary UL rejects. Operators can choose to use over-the-air SIM control, including integration of SS7 rejection methods. Enhanced SIM/OTA capabilities, as well as advanced R.99 handsets, provide operators full remote control over their outbound subscribers along with newfound flexibility.
The hybrid solution facilitates total, real-time steering of operators’ outbound roamers. Dynamic SIM updates driven by business logic provide operators with a powerful steering tool.
Reduce traffic
Cities around the world are reducing pollution by lessening traffic and promoting public transportation. The hybrid solution for roaming substantially reduces international traffic, so operators can better meet business objectives while offering improved steering.
Operators can steer different subscriber segments to the networks that provide the required services, such as 3G or CAMEL. In addition, the SIM/OTA integration offers robust immunity to anti-SoR activities.
Hybrid steering provides a higher probability that the roamer will be successfully redirected to the preferred partner network.
It also provides better response time to the roamer and significantly lowers signaling traffic to/from the VPMN, without compromising performance.
Harnessing OTA enables dynamic update of the SIM data of roaming subscribers to match the operator’s steering policy at any time. It allows operators to better steer non-compliant handsets that do not respond to SS7-based steering (rejects) while providing greater immunity against anti-SoR activities.
Driven by a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI), operators can simply configure their hybrid steering solution’s feature-rich steering policy. This configuration enables the application to automatically generate and send appropriate SIM data files, such as the preferred public land mobile network (PLMN) list, to roaming subscribers based on their location, as well as on their preferred services.
Protect key resources
There is a growing awareness that responsible businesses should protect natural resources. Likewise, many mobile operators are attempting to protect one of their most important resources. The inbound market provides visited public mobile network (VPMN) operators with the majority of total roaming revenue, and thus it is only natural that many operators are currently seeking inbound management solutions to protect and enhance this important revenue source. The inbound revenue stream is more difficult than ever to preserve due to competition from other VPMNs and steering of roamers to partner networks by home public mobile networks (HPMNs).
Gateway Location Register solutions are increasingly popular, because they enable VPMNs to significantly reduce the signaling messages sent to the signaling provider and towards other HPMNs. This reduction lowers expenses and provides control over inbound roamers’ activities within the network.
Gateway Location Register solutions provide reports identifying the locations where inbound roamers leave the network to join another competing network in the country. These reports include the Cell ID within the specific visitor location register (VLR) the inbound roamer left, and the exact mobile switching number (MSC) number of the competing network. Information is collected on either a real-time or history basis and enables operators to optimise their network radio coverage based on the reports.
A comprehensive and flexible set of tools allow visited mobile network operators to control their inbound roaming communities in the most optimised way. A comprehensive toolkit should include: an intelligent and configurable application for implementing business objectives; a user-friendly, Web-based GUI provisioning interface; and reporting, including online and off-line roaming reports.
The solution activates operations to keep the visitor within the network as long as possible, while following the 3GPP recommendations. Reduced signalling, significantly lowered expenses, and more control over inbound roamers activities in operators’ networks will help protect and grow their most important revenue stream.
The leading Gateway Location Register solutions are based on the SS7 network. As handsets of all types adhere to the GSM standard in regards to the basic network selection process, this solution is completely handset-independent, providing flexibility for users and operators.
Gateway Location Register solutions reduce signalling related to location changes in the VPMN by 70 per cent, enhancing cost savings and reducing the efficiency of SoR solutions by managing the majority of location changes (between VLRs) locally within the network.
The future
Choosing hybrids, reducing traffic and protecting key resources are excellent prescriptions for improving the environment. They are also good options for mobile operators looking to extend coverage, reduce costs and protect their most important revenue source. &
Amit Daniel, Vice President of Marketing for Starhome
