The Hindu Business Line : Wings to roam

You took to the skies, but your mobile didn't. It's a familiar complaint mobile users have about their roaming facility failing. Roamware Inc says it can help.

REMEMBER the last time you travelled abroad or to some other location in India and your cellular phone let you down in spite of your having paid for the roaming facility? You tried desperately to get the roaming facility working, jumbling up numbers in the process. But no go, you finally gave up in helpless frustration.But take heart, such experiences could soon become a thing of the past, says Abraham Punnoose, Director, Business Development, Roamware Inc.

Roamware is a San Jose, US-based provider of software solutions for the telecom sector.

For the scenario we started off with - where your number fails to go roaming with you - what is needed is an innovative, intelligent piece of software, says Punnoose.

He says his company has developed a replication platform for telecom carriers, which enables operators to forge alliances with networks spread across multiple locations in various geographies.

Imagine the complexity of forging alliances with, say, about 200 networks spread across the world and having to tackle different languages. Typically, such a task could possibly take anywhere between 18 months and two years and could well be considered an operator's nightmare.

But by using Roamware's platform, and possibly one strategic alliance, it would be possible to strike such an arrangement with over 150 to 200 networks across the world in just about two weeks. This is managed by leveraging the existing arrangement of a telecom company through a revenue share. The new operator instantly piggybacks on the network and can offer seamless roaming across networks at one go without having to sign up with scores of operators, says Punnoose.

Typically, an operator earns about Rs 50 to 100 per minute on a mobile network when offering roaming services. Any delay in such an arrangement could be detrimental to the operator's interest and could also possibly lead to customer churn. Obviously, any customer would move out to a network that ensures better roaming advantage.

Roamware helps its subscriber tackle another problem too. When a user leaves from, say, Hyderabad or Chennai, to Delhi or Kolkata, or for that matter to a network abroad, he is confronted with the task of tackling multiple numbers to connect to the local lines.

With an innovative solution, it is now possible for a user to take advantage of what is referred to as an auto correction system that prompts the user with the right number. This means that an operator can offer call correction on the fly, as it were.

Also, says Punnoose, with Roamware's system, there is no call drop, irrespective of where a user is roaming.

How does this work? Through what is referred to as traffic redirection, the intelligence built into the software redirects the call through the network that is least engaged and thereby removes the choking effect and ensures that there is no call drop.

Traffic redirection proactively contacts outbound roamers and influences the choice of network on which they roam when overseas. This enables operators to direct roamers to their preferred partners, resulting in maximising roaming revenues, says Punnoose.The Indian telecom market is growing at a pretty fast clip and offers huge scope for expansion. But while operators concentrate on expansion, they will soon come to a scenario "where customer retention will become the important focus area for operators," he says.

Independent surveys estimate that about 25 per cent of calls in any network (in India) do not succeed and about 25 per cent end up as wrong calls. This brings down consumer satisfaction and experience levels and also chops off an operator's revenue. Look at the scenario faced by a globe-trotting executive. If he gets billed, let's say, Rs 1 lakh a month, and say about 25 per cent calls do not go through, the operator loses about 25 per cent of the revenue. This is where strategic alliances and traffic redirection help, explains Punnoose.

Typically, the telecom carrier's response is reactive. The carrier takes to certain changes based on customer feedback. With the latest technology, thebest practices from across networks can instantly be brought on to a local network. This helps a consumer get information from the operator and, based on that, his experience is enhanced.

Areas such as quality of service, traffic redirection, a specialised location-based service, and a combination of virtual home service and advanced traffic management platform make a world of difference to overall customer satisfaction, stresses Punnoose. "We are, in effect, pioneers in this telecom segment which is expected to be about $800 million in a $50-billion GSM market," he says. Roamware Inc, established in May 2002, provides voice and data roaming solutions. It partners over 75 mobile operators in 55 countries across six continents. Earlier this year the company announced plans to invest Rs 50 crore in its India Development Centre over a three-year time frame. Its customers in India include Hutch, BPL Mobile, Reliance, Idea Cellular, BSNL, MTNL, Rainbow and AirTel.

The development centre, based in Povai, Mumbai, supports worldwide engineering, R&D, global support, product management and marketing.

Picture by V. Ganesan

vrishi@thehindu.co.in

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