Each bilateral agreement requires
a certain setting up effort in as well as a
minimum of manpower for ongoing configuration
changes, billing, settlement, etc. Yet the
contribution to the business of most bilaterals
taken individually remains marginal, ad exception
of very few, those carrying most of the traffic.
One way to meet the challenge
is to limit the initial international coverage
to a handful of destinations (those with acceptable
levels of traffic), and to extend it further
on a case by case basis, triggered by specific
requests and or customers' complaints. In its
own right, International SMS was both a lucky
case and unfortunate one. Lucky because the
international SMS coverage has been growing
with the number of GSM roaming agreements (European
average is in the range of 250 – 300 networks),
yet unfortunate as it remains limited to the
roaming coverage unless Mobile Operators look
for alternative solutions.
If the challenge of reaching
global coverage is compelling, so is the opportunity
for selected Carriers to work with Mobile Operators
and Industry Associations (i.e. GSMA) to investigate
and purse solutions to extend international
messaging coverage in a cost effective manner
without compromising in reliability, quality
and service control.
A Revised Hub Concept
Recently, the “Hub” concept
was indicated as basis for development of a
new category of enablers, applicable to messaging
interworking and future mobile data services ,
which may provide a possible solution to the
case of messaging interworking.
The “Hub” concept is not new
in the telecom industry as many carrier services,
such as voice, are actually based on such concept,
nor its benefits are unknown: (i.) optimization
of network and switching resources; (ii.) centralization
of service control; (iii.) rationalization
of number of interconnections amongst regional
operators and last but not least (iv.) simplification
of interconnect billing process, with mobile
operators being able to reach global voice
coverage through an handful of Carriers' connections.
Unfortunately, several drawbacks
are often associated with the “Hub” concept
fuelling some skepticism as to whether the
model would be fit enough for intrinsically
more complex services such as SMS and MMS.
Voice hubbing is often associated with least
cost routing (price is the only driver with
any sacrifice on quality) and limited degree
of transparency (the information concerning
identity and number of intermediate providers
involved in the establishment of a call connection
is not present in the call set-up procedure).
Furthermore, as far as interworking
goes, messaging is very different from voice.
A voice call is a circuit switched connection
between caller and called number. Once connection
is up, caller and callee can enjoy full communication
experience (connection oriented service). When
it comes to messaging, full user experience
can be achieved when the correspondent replies
to a received message or initiates a new message
transaction. Messaging interworking is necessarily
a “2way messaging exchange between any two
networks” (connectionless service).
If applied to messaging interworking,
the “Hub” concept would need major improvements
to position it as quality enabler with predictable
performance. 2way interworking, transparency,
sender visibility, traceability, predictable
service performance have all been indicated
as qualifying features for a much revised concept
of “Hub” suitable for messaging.
Multilateral Messaging Platforms
Selected Carriers have responded
to the challenge of implementing the “Hub” concept
for messaging interworking in the form of multilateral
platforms, consisting of standards-based interoperability
systems married with powerful accounting and
settlement modules to integrate the various
mobile operators' messaging platforms and billing
systems.
As immediate advantage, mobile
operators will only have to connect once to
exchange messages with all mobile networks
already connected to the hub, and via inter-hubs
interconnections, with mobile operators connected
to other hub. In addition such multilateral
platforms deliver fast and cost effective implementation
of interworking agreements; reduced billing
development cost and last but not least increased
security thanks to centralized monitoring and
control of traffic streams.
When applied to SMS interworking,
such platforms ought to leverage SS7 and IP
connectivity to extend coverage respectively
to GSM networks yet uncovered by international
roaming agreements and to non-GSM networks,
amongst which CDMA based 2G and 3G networks,
already largely adopted in key wireless market
such as USA, and prime candidate to serve a
large number of subscribers in fast growing
wireless market such as India and China. Such
interstandard capability makes wireless messaging
truly global so users are able to reach their
correspondents irrespective of the wireless
technology.
As opposed to SMS, the interworking
model for multimedia messaging, MMS, is entirely
separated from roaming, making the case for
interworking even more pressing as mobile operators
have to broker brand new agreements which entail,
besides obvious commercial negotiations, extensive
interoperability testing, accurate end to end
service configuration (i.e. max size supported)
and rather complex billing mediation between
alternative charging models (i.e. linear vs.
volume classes). Consequently, multilateral
platforms for MMS Interworking should deliver
flexible and versatile protocol interfaces
to quickly gain interoperability with various
MMSCs available in the market (Multimedia Messaging
Service Centers). Of equal importance is the
support for multiple charging models (event,
linear, volume classes), to suit mobile operator's
retail tariffs and associated retail billing
system, as interconnect billing developments
won't be justified for still quite some time.
Going forward, multilateral platforms for MMS
interworking should add interstandard components
to their feature list in order to interoperate
with the growing CDMA wireless community. As
effort is already underway ,
subscribers won't wait long before reaching
their correspondents on other wireless technologies.
Positive Business Case
From a pure financial point
of view, initial case studies show that, multilateral
approach to international messaging interworking
is rather cost effective with very attractive
rate of return, as high as 50% (taking into
account standard 80/20 traffic profile, where
80% of the traffic is reached through a limited
number of best selling destinations). With
same working assumptions, the bilateral model
may well produce negative returns.
Alternatively, Mobile Operators
may choose to purse both venues (bilateral
and multilateral) in order to leverage preferential
business relationships or to retain direct
control of high traffic destinations. As consequence,
multilateral platforms should be designed to
perfectly coexist with mobile operators' bilateral
agreements, delivering seamless quality, and
allowing a smooth migration of traffic from
bilateral to multilateral and vice versa.
Final Considerations
When it comes to international
messaging interworking, the heuristic rule
of 80/20 (80 percent of traffic out of 20 destinations)
is likely to apply, making attractive for Mobile
Operators to sign up few bilateral agreements
and to rely on multilateral platforms for interworking
to progressively reach global coverage in a
cost effective manner without sacrificing in
quality, yet retaining similar level of end
to end service visibility and control.
Through multilateral platforms
for interworking, Carriers can play a role
in the development of sustainable business
models for present and future mobile data services,
built on cascading of payment information through
the value chain to limit bypasses (increase
termination revenue) and consequently reduces
the risks of spamming and unsolicited messages
(reduces customers' complaints).
GSMA
press release http://www.gsmworld.com/news/press_2004/press04_33.shtml
Reference
is made to GSMNA ( North America ) working
group on MMS Interoperability.
About the Author:
On January 1 st 2005 , Bridget
has been appointed CEO of the newly created
Belgacom International Carrier Services, a
stand alone, yet fully owned subsidiary of
Belgacom Group. As CEO of the Belgacom International
Carrier Services (BICS) Bridget is also member
of the Belgacom Group's Executive Committee
and Board Member of Belgacom Mobile, Proximus.
She joined Belgacom in 2001. She was also responsible
for National Wholesale activities between 2001
and 2003.
Prior to Belgacom, Bridget
was Deputy Director General of the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)
1996 -2001. Bridget became active in telecommunications
with BT plc in 1993, where she was a Project
Director responsible for establishing joint
ventures and infrastructure acquisitions in
Europe and Australia . Previously, Bridget
was an investment banker with Financière
Indosuez, and worked in business development
with Elders XL.
Bridget (43) received a Master's
in Business Administration from London Business
School (UK) and a Bachelor of Arts, Honours
from Queen's University at Kingston , Canada
. She is a dual Irish and Canadian citizen
and has been living and working in Europe since
1984. She is fluent in English and French.
