Starhome, which provides roaming services for mobile network operators, has announced the launch of its Next Generation Intelligent Preferred Network Solution (NG-IPN).
Starhome describes NG-IPN as the first fully automated Steering of Roaming (SoR) solution, and says that it enables operators to automatically steer their outbound roamers to preferred network partners, based on revenues and Inter-operator Tariff (IOT) agreements. Optimized steering efficiency is achieved when NG-IPN detects deviations in the roamers behaviour pattern, profiles them, and initiates an automatic adjustment to the steering application. Therefore, says Starhome, NG-IPNs automated performance facilitates better steering results, maximizing targets set by mobile operators.
NG-IPN also provides operators with an immediate snapshot of the usage status and distribution of roamers across all networks in each visited country, giving them an up-to-date revenue status report. The automated solution provides efficient steering results by focusing on usage distribution, rather than the number of roamers. In addition, says Starhome, NG-IPN eliminates manual provisioning, as well as manual requests for daily status reports.
The solution also enables operators to dynamically segment subscribers, based on their current and previous usage. For example, high data consumption subscribers who use 3G data cards, will be steered by NG-IPN to the network where the data targets are still outstanding; the same logic applies for voice-only users and sleepers (users who do not generate any roaming traffic).
According to Starhome, other SoR solutions focus solely on the distribution of roamers between visited networks, rather than analyzing the actual usage and revenue patterns. To receive a revenue report, roaming managers must obtain reports from their billing departments, check each network to see if they are meeting targets, and modify the configurations.
These enhanced capabilities dramatically increase steering effectiveness and help mobile operators achieve their roaming business goals quickly, more efficiently and with a minimal investment of resources, says Starhome Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, Amit Daniel.