Tata Communications brings seamless global LTE roaming into reality

USA & INDIA: Tata Communications Ltd has unveiled details of its 18-month intensive trial to deliver one of the industry’s first complete LTE Roaming Services to Mobile Network Operators (MNOs).

Available today, following rigorous testing, the LTE Roaming Service is designed to eliminate the interconnection and interworking complexities of global LTE roaming. The experience gained from the trial resulted in a managed service that simplifies global roaming complexity, offering a single interconnect point and facilitating protocol interworking across multiple mobile operators.

With 4G LTE revenues projected to exceed $100bn globally in 2014, enabling users to roam in 4G is critical to maximising revenues. Tata Communications’ LTE Roaming Service enables MNOs to fast track their roll-out of LTE roaming in a cost-effective and scalable manner, while creating differentiation in a highly competitive marketplace.

The end-to-end managed solution leverages the company’s extensive experience as the largest mobile signalling inter-provider to streamline roaming interconnect arrangements between mobile operators, replacing the need for hundreds of bilateral peer associations with a single centralised robust interconnect point. This simplifies roaming interconnect to deliver a seamless user experience and assure service continuity as mobile operators migrate to 4G.

“Demand for 4G services is set to explode within the next two years, with some providers announcing price plans which are comparable to 3G. To support this, our LTE Roaming Service is already in place to reduce the complexity and risks for MNOs as they move to 4G. This drives efficiencies, allowing MNOs to focus on their core competencies and maximise the revenue opportunities around next-generation networks,” says Jeffrey Bak, VP, Product Management - Mobility Services, at Tata Communications.

Tata Communications researchers spent 18 months conducting extensive trials with vendors to understand the complexities of 4G roaming, and the challenges involved in making it work across different  vendor Diameter Agent implementations. The team also tested and validated possible migrations scenarios which could arise from 2G / 3G to 4G transitioning, enhancing Tata Communications’ readiness to enable MNOs to deliver a seamless user experience by proactively addressing and managing multi-network issues.

The testing allowed Tata Communications to gain the knowledge and operational enhancements required to create a streamlined unified global support framework, allowing MNOs to fast track LTE roaming cost-effectively.

The LTE Roaming Service comprises Tata Communications’ Diameter Signalling eXchange platform to enable roaming authentication and policy control, and IPX Connect for data roaming and transport. The end-to-end managed solution includes flexible QoS, supporting a mix of up to six classes of service, and customer service bundles based on business needs. Together with its established 2G / 3G roaming service, SCCP (Signalling Connection Control Part), Tata Communications provides an all-in-one offer supporting both 2G / 3G and 4G roaming service under one framework.

This gives operators a scalable upgrade path to 4G along with the ability to support multiple roaming services across a single managed carrier grade IPX connection. Built on Tata Communications’ own leading global data network, the LTE Roaming Service provides the reach, scale, and reliability for mission-critical operations.