Roaming unbundling — Challenges and opportunities

The European Commission (EC) mandates that from July 1, 2014, Mobile network operators (MNO) shall offer the possibility to other parties, referred to as Alternative roaming provider (ARP), to offer `roaming services´. When a subscriber of a national MNO, referred to as Domestic service provider (DSP) in this context, travels abroad, that person should be entitled to receive voice, data, SMS and MMS from the ARP. Hereto, the end-user has to sign up with the ARP beforehand. Users shall also be entitled to use Local breakout (LBO) when traveling abroad. Data connection (mobile IP connectivity) may be obtained from the Visited mobile network operator (VMNO), through local GGSN / PDGw. Hereto, the end-user has to sign up with the local LBO operator. ARP and LBO present specific challenges for MNOs, but also opportunities for differentiation. The present paper provides overview of the architecture impact for achieving ARP and LBO.