Mobile operators must address demands from enterprises and consumers for international coverage and service continuity for their fast-growing number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Global roaming is expected to work seamlessly for IoT devices that are produced in one country but used in various geographical markets. However, a few of these mobile operators, backed up by local regulators, still enforce restrictions over permanent roaming as a preventative measure to shield their markets.
Enterprises work with mobile operators and IoT connectivity providers to use new technologies such as narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) to benefit from a long battery lifetime and low energy consumption, as well as a seamless international roaming footprint. IoT roaming is in demand for smart metres, connected cars, asset tracking and many other use cases from multiple industries.
Instead of applying permanent roaming restrictions as demanded by several regulators globally, a more judicious approach is to enable permanent IoT roaming with safeguards to protect domestic markets. In the consumer market, we have already witnessed how mobile operators have extensively utilised fair usage policies for roam-like-at-home tariffs to protect against abuse, and how international travellers have defined safeguards like cut-off mechanisms with maximum financial limits on data roaming.
An increasing number of mobile operators have taken a similar approach in their commercial negotiations for IoT roaming traffic. Their target is to keep the inbound IoT traffic under control, whilst, at the same time, positioning themselves as the preferred choice for global connectivity for the domestic enterprise market. These mobile operators have found that IoT roaming is no longer a threat or a concern, but rather an opportunity to grow their wholesale revenues. With the right monetisation strategies and tools in place, mobile operators will benefit from opening their networks for permanent IoT roaming to accelerate the growth of global IoT and the digitalisation of many industries.
Short-term strategy
Achieving consensus about global permanent roaming for IoT is key for the telecoms industry to maximise the IoT revenue opportunity. However, a single definition of permanent roaming is not possible yet due to different regulatory TOMIA explains why protecting is smarter than prohibiting permanent roaming devices requirements in multiple countries. Some countries or mobile operators consider permanent roaming a resale of connectivity services to the domestic market, which in a few cases has resulted in more drastic defencive actions such as barring permanent devices from connecting to the network.
In addition, there are also different technical approaches for the monitoring and measurement of IoT traffic and presence. The latter is important as, depending on the use case, a significant number of devices may be connected on a network without generating chargeable data events, but are still consuming signalling and network resources. Similarly, frequent crossing of borders by devices, such as connected vehicles, could mean they are wrongly considered as permanent devices and fall into different commercial categories.
One way or another, mobile operators must determine whether their IoT traffic and presence, for both inbound and outbound roaming, is significant. And, most importantly, if it’s profitable. In the short-term, mobile operators need to capture the value for connectivity provided to massive IoT use cases, such as those in logistics, tracking, fleet management and smart metres.
At TOMIA, we see that mobile operators have hundreds of thousands of devices permanently roaming in their networks. In some cases, 70% of these generate less than one cent per month although they provide the required connectivity. With data prices dropping 20% every year, charging based on traffic usage is no longer an option. The industry has been looking into new charging models, such as a monthly surcharge per device.
From the home operator’s perspective, special attention must be given not only to the regulation of permanent roaming in different countries but also to the taxation and corporate compliance requirements. On the other hand, to protect against the resale of IoT in their domestic markets, visited operators can implement guardrails to selectively allow permanent IoT roaming for their own benefit depending on the type of IoT services, enterprises being served, their locations and the number of devices in their networks. Ideally, this is agreed in the IoT wholesale deals with transparency, where the home operator discloses how it will identify IoT traffic, or by mutual agreement of the detection method. Such detection may be based on a combination of device information, international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) numbers, radio access technology used by the devices, and even signalling information, relevant for the so-called silent IoT devices that are connected but not using data services.
Long-term strategy
While monetisation of the massive numbers of roaming IoT devices with small data volumes is the most urgent need, in the long-term monetisation and providing the right level of services to critical IoT devices, such as healthcare, autonomous driving, real-time media, remote control and other industrial applications is also required. Critical and broadband IoT will account for a smaller percentage of the total number of IoT devices, but they have a high business value. The right strategy requires first to separate this type of IoT connectivity, then to provide the right end-to-end quality of service, such as high availability, ultra-reliable low-latency communication, and finally to monetise and settle this IoT service. This is exactly how mobile operators will play a fundamental role in the enterprise business, not only by assuring that the right quality of service is delivered but by charging for it differently. All this is expected when 5G networks are introduced, which will provide a more robust data service to supercharge the IoT opportunity and pave the way for the IoT connected world to become a reality.
Right now, different industry bodies are defining standards to have a common solution to manage and settle these different types of IoT use cases, as well as to support B2B models with different terms and duration of contracts. The GSMA Billing Charge Evolution (BCE) standard aims to provide this flexibility from a settlement point of view. TOMIA is at the forefront of the BCE settlement evolution to provide mobile operators with reliable wholesale billing for IoT and 5G services. It supports advanced charging models through flexible aggregation and automated reconciliation processes, aiming to avoid manual calculations or recalculations, in many cases.
In summary, the permanent roaming prohibition in certain countries aims to protect local markets from the resale of IoT connectivity. However, with the right tools in hand, a few operators have demonstrated that it can be presented as an opportunity to supercharge IoT, in which most devices consume essentially very little traffic volumes. Looking ahead, mobile operators are looking to generate revenue from their network capabilities by offering and charging for differentiated quality of service for mission critical IoT services.
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