SAN DIEGO, USA: At the 2009 3G CDMA Americas Regional Conference, the CDMA Development Group (CDG) announced a new initiative aimed at making international voice, SMS, and data roaming easier for operators.
The CDMA Roaming Hub (CRH) will offer an accelerated, multi-lateral, multi-service roaming implementation framework through centralized third-party service providers. The CRH model builds on the success of today's CDMA2000 roaming service providers by covering all critical aspects of CDMA roaming under one umbrella and allowing immediate access to many roaming partners through a single roaming agreement.
This will provide CDMA carriers with an alternative to the current bi-lateral roaming implementation model, enabling the rapid expansion of CDMA roaming to many emerging markets.
"While international CDMA roaming enjoys healthy growth both in terms of coverage and traffic, the established bi-lateral roaming model leaves room for improvement," said Perry LaForge, executive director of the CDMA Development Group. "Now that there are more than 300 CDMA operators worldwide, the CRH concept will enable CDMA2000 operators to quickly expand their international roaming coverage and increase their resulting revenues."
The main objective of the CRH initiative is to develop a comprehensive set of requirements which will specify the components necessary to launch successful CRH services. In addition to streamlining roaming agreement management, provisioning, testing, and risk analysis, the CRH will offer faster time-to-market, cost reductions, and consolidated wholesale billing.
CDMA Roaming Hubs will enable many new carriers in emerging markets to offer international roaming, and will also be a viable alternative for established CDMA2000 carriers to expand their roaming footprint into new markets.
While initial implementations will focus on CDMA2000, the CRH roadmap may include multi-mode roaming services, allowing participating carriers to implement roaming to GSM, WCDMA, and 4G networks in the future.
"Operators have played a key role in defining the requirements for the roaming hub," LaForge continued. "The CDMA roaming vendors have also been instrumental in contributing commercial and operational information that will ensure the roaming hub concept will lead to commercially-viable services."
The first CDMA Roaming Hub service offering is expected to be commercialized in the first half of 2010, with more expected to follow.
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