Red Herring Discusses “Roaming Shock” and a Possible Cure
Joel Dreyfuss from Red Herring writes, “If you’ve ever used your mobile phone on a trip abroad, you’ve encountered ‘roaming shock.’” The reality is that voice and data roaming can be quite expensive when roaming between distant or even adjacent countries, however, a few recent measures are quelling this “roaming shock.” One of them is the European Commission regulations for specifying maximum roaming charges. Another one, which is more exciting, is the emergence of new consumer options built on better technology and driving new competition.
For example, United Mobile, as covered in this article, can offer international calls at 80% less than many carriers. Mobile calls between most EU countries start at €0.29 ($0.40) per minute, with incoming costs free. Data costs as little as 99 Euro cents per megabyte, compared to an average of €5.24 in the European Union. (Disclosure: United Mobile is an existing Blueslice customer.)
What this means:
1. United Mobile was one of the first MVNOs to build infrastructure and has survived the MVNO graveyard as a result, when many MVNOs, mostly US-based, disregarded attempts to build a real network-based operation.
2. Keep your eye on companies that began as MVNOs and add convergence services and multi-play operations to better differentiate. Do we still call these MVNOs? This kind of player is able to be more than an MVNO because it “operates its own telecommunications infrastructure.” Also the term MVNO has become taboo, so perhaps we’ll be calling these operators: alternative service providers, wholesale operators, convergence players… or better yet, just mobile service providers and let the consumers do the choosing.
Red Herring Canada 2008
Red Herring Canada 2008 is happening right now up at the lovely resort of Tremblant in Quebec, celebrating the best of Canadian technology companies. Blueslice CEO Stephan Ouaknine will be speaking tomorrow (Tuesday) at 3:45pm and 4:45pm.
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About the SDM Blog
The SDM Blog is the place to read what Blueslice employees and some of our friends from elsewhere have to say about subscriber data management, as well as related topics such as HLR/HSS, AAA, quad plays, roaming, and next generation mobility.
It's not an official Blueslice blog, and any opinions belong to the authors and do not necessarily represent the official company views of Blueslice.
Blueslice is one of the companies that has led the evolution of next generation HLR/HSS solutions. You can learn more at Blueslice.com. -
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