Some missed out aspects of outbound roamer steering

Roaming revenues have always been an important part of the operator’s income. The EU regulations introduced limitations of roaming charges both for wholesale and retail tariffs. The roaming revenues were expected not to be effected massively, with the idea that lowered prices would boost the usage. After several years with the regulations in practice, many operators argue that the usage did not increase as expected resulting in decreased roaming revenues. The regulations have also a water bed effect on the non-EU operators. To be able to compensate the revenues the EU operators may charge more to the non-EU ones which affects them too.

We hear a lot about the EU commissioner’s views on the roaming tariffs, which can be summarized as “no difference between the cost of making a call in one’s home market and across borders”. This is an indication that the roaming business will not get relief but will have lower margins each year. Reading news reports from non-European countries which ministers say the roaming charges are too high and should be lower, shows us that EU regulations are inspiring other countries too.

With these trends in the roaming business, operators are paying extra attention to the details to be able to maximize the profit while establishing subscriber stickiness. Outbound roamer steering has always been a way of maintaining higher profits from outbound roamers by redirecting them to the preferred roaming partners, though its nature is changing with the changing trends in the GSM world too. As a vendor with widespread roaming products serving to millions of subscribers and with close relations with operators, I would like to highlight a couple of issues about outbound roamer steering in the following posts.