Roaming dynamics in GPRS and beyond: options and strategies

Roaming is a service that allows a subscriber of one operator to use the services of another operator when inside the latter's coverage area. Over 20000 roaming agreements have made the GSM service available around the world; the same is expected also for GPRS, and further for 3G. Operators are now implementing GPRS roaming using so called "home network" model where traffic from visited network is routed back to home network using GRX networks. The model offers good service quality, security and control of customers, but some issues with content roaming still exist. While implementing roaming, an operator has to make several decisions that affect the operator's business in various, complex ways. We provide an insight into the end-to-end roaming models in the mobile communications industry and identify the possible roaming business model scenarios for GPRS and beyond. We discuss the key business and technological triggers that would encourage an operator to adopt one of these identified models. We also highlight the major concerns an operator has while choosing a roaming model. The basic assumptions and constraints considered for our model have also been listed in this paper. Roaming dynamics has been explained based on MOB, a mobile business game being developed at Helsinki University of Technology.