You opportunity to get to know your peers before the start of the conference and set a relaxed and informal atmosphere

Mark will recount the findings of the Global Roaming Report (2nd Edition) that he co-authored with Michele Scanlon (Principal Consultant,Green Giraffe)

• Describing the scale of roaming legislation in the EU and its impact on roaming tariff settlement in Europe and on non EU IOT wholesale negotiations
• Examining the drivers for the EU to enforce lower interconnection and wholesale costs on roaming prices
• Analysing the regulatory stance on traffic redirection and alliance pricing settlements – innovation in competition or sustained levy of premium rates?
• Outlining the new generation of international roaming agreements for GPRS services,SMS and MMS;is the industry maintaining anticompetitive practice?

• Analysing the consumer requirements that necessitate regulation to satisfy anti-competitive practice
• Examining the application of the Code of Conduct for the self-regulating of roaming charges
• Evaluating the pro's and con's of opting for the EU regulated IOT or the €0.45 / €0.36 initiative – what are the drivers for choosing one over the other?
• Will there be reason for self regulation of lower data IOTs?
• How can Operators balance flat retail rates with dynamic wholesale rates?

• FCC overview – the institutions that regulate the US market
• Articulating the evolving dynamics of the US mobile roaming market
• Analysing initiatives in tariff settlements and the level of pricing enjoyed by the end user
• Will the different taxes (local,state,federal) influence the level of regulation or is that up to operators to manage?
• Examining the imposition of a flat rate across domestic zones and the implications for operator profit margins
• How will state intervention in pricing for data services impact uptake and usage given the roaming context?

• Examining the structure and management of alliance executive direction and control – what formalised competencies exist within the alliance?
• Defining the competitive environment for mobile alliances in the European context
• Gauging the benefits of targeting specific customer/market segments with appropriate pricing models and data roaming initiatives
• Ensuring the alliance supports efforts to enable a complete and uniform user/roaming experience
• Evaluating the success of an alliance to date in achieving competitive advantage

• Examining the requirements of small-medium-large operators and the impact of alliance activity across that scale
• Examining the strategy of Telefσnica since its departure from FreeMove and how its affiliates have since been developed across Europe
• Analysing alliance activity beyond Europe:
  • What is the potential for roaming in Africa and how do alliances work in Africa?
  • What is the consumer needs/behaviour for an African customer?
  • Examining dynamics of the South American mobile roaming arena and the roll out of novel services across the region
  • Determining the requirements and potential of other regions/alliances
• How does ownership of an operator affect alliance membership and activity – do Chinese walls exist between affiliate operators (by ownership) who are within different alliances?

• Examining the impact re-routing will have on QoS and routing costs
• Determining the information required to plan effective re-routing
• Balancing the benefits of least cost routing against poor customer service in terms of dropped call rates
• Overcoming the barriers to implementing optimal routing for calls made between roamers using the visited network
• Determining whether savings from optimised call routing should be passed on to the consumer

• Overcoming the challenges of defining the priorities first then deciding how to process the data
• Can alliance membership improve technical exchange,knowledge management and QoS?
• Assessing service expectations of national and international roamers and setting QoS parameters
• Defining key metrics for maintaining QoS when roaming – network,terminal,and call specific information requiring constant monitoring
• Analysing dual IMSI roaming solutions and the consequences for the quality of roaming testing and billing
• Collating and correlating both technical and perceived quality;what are the real time applications and benefits for CRM processes?
• Examining the differences and QoS requirements for voice and data applications and the key principles and features of the VHE and how it enhances QoS

• Understanding the strategic objectives of traffic redirection
  • reducing costs
  • enhancing customer care
  • improving market share
• Leveraging roaming agreements to optimise traffic management
• Cost balancing the set-up costs of traffic management systems against the proposed increase in roaming revenue
• Evaluating OTA platforms that relay updated preferred partner lists
• Developing strategies to optimise connection time to preferred partner networks

Our expert group of facilitators will briefly introduce the main concepts of SoR and will then aid in the debate of key areas of concern that you would care to raise.Please come pre-armed with questions and queries and also note that discussion will be initiated within our online networking tool,pre-conference.

• Examining the drivers and benefits of SoR,self regulation and margin restoration
• Balancing SoR with IOTs determined by alliance membership and bilateral vs.multilateral agreements
• Exploiting remote control over the VPMN when outbound subscribers roam in foreign countries
  • what are the implications for discounting IOTs for bilateral agreements outside of alliances
• to secure profitable traffic volumes?
• Compensating for the impact of roaming on customer experience – ensuring the key aspects of VHE provision are met via SoR
• SoR and OTA updates:substitution or complementary traffic redirection tools?
• Profiles for SoR – outlining different approaches for different customer segments

Facilitated by

Assisted by

End of Conference Day One – Delegate Dinner

All delegates are invited to a networking dinner at a restaurant in Budapest,an opportunity to go over the day's events in an informal and relaxed atmosphere

• Is there room to manoeuvre when it comes to pricing?
• Developing pricing models to determine threshold prices for optimum profitability
  • building threshold prices into new attractive tariff plans
• Measuring customer response to price changes and the subsequent impact on usage whilst abroad/roaming
  • identifying a target group – all or some?
  • tailoring price promotions to more price elastic segments
• Examining price elasticity in a cross border commuting intense region
• How we at 3 made the Φresund our 'Mare Nostrum'
• Evaluating the gains of service promotion vs.response time in traffic growth per service
• Mapping the growth to commuting behaviour to encourage maximum usage

• Segmenting your market and setting the priorities
  • business
  • youth
  • communities
• Developing price plans and promotions to fit specific campaigns for market segments to stimulate:
  • uptake
  • usage
  • new product awareness
  • cost reduction
  • service migration
  • acquisition
  • retention
• Ensuring your price plans are aligned with overall strategy for different customer groups
• Measuring profitability of specific customer segments and allocating marketing spend on high ROI groups
• Identifying high value customers and offering individualised roaming product offerings and pricing strategies for higher ARPU

Customers and Maintain a Price Premium in an Increasing Cost-Sensitive Market

• Formulating winning strategies to acquire customers in a saturated market and developing a tariff plan to ensure their retention
• Aligning brand and service positioning to attract users and maintain a price premium in a saturated market
• Dealing with the threat of free voice by identifying key trends and arising new market opportunities which justify a price premium for specific and novel services
• Tailoring promotion models specifically to encourage users to migrate to your roaming services
• Determining the most attractive messaging and data bundles for different types of users
• Increasing your brand synergy through strong alliances

• Analysing the effect of the introduction of flat rate pricing on MNOs and MVNOs:
  • where are the risks and what are the benefits?
• Identifying the drivers for shifting to flat rate pricing:
  • is flat rate pricing the most effective means of introducing or encouraging 3G services whilst roaming?
  • shifting the focus to content and away from traffic
• Examining emerging business models based around flat rate pricing
  • using partnership and collaboration to make flat rate profitable
• Implementing flat rate pricing as a means of overcoming customer fear of high roaming bills for new services to drive uptake
  • analysing the impact on your bottom line
• Examining the relationship between flat rate and declining ARPU in saturating markets
• Investigating the impact flat rate pricing can have on your brand and service position and what role Alliances play in effectively determining and communicating the proposition?

• Outlining the nuances of the Brazilian mobile market and the positioning of the Oi Brazil brand
• Exploring the dynamics of the South American mobile roaming market – taking the convergent path
• Examining and evaluating current models for negotiation
• Improving roaming revenues by exploring convergent opportunities
• Evaluating the risks associated with alliances,non-convergent operators,etc

• Are there any multilateral models such as OC impacting wholesale tariffing?
• Understanding the concept of roaming minutes becoming a commodity and whether they should be traded as a commodity?
  • what can we learn from the fixed line industry in that regard?
• What would a stock exchange for roaming minutes and services look like – how would it work?
• Anyone for options on minute tariffs for Christmas?
  • examining roaming minutes futures and options,seasonally,monthly,daily,etc
• What tools are needed to trade in minutes and set IOTs? Is there a Bloomberg or Reuters for roaming tariffs?

• Quantifying the importance of roaming revenues to the business and the current scale of fraudulent roaming activity
• Overcoming the challenge of accurate data reconciliation for roaming call data records
• Determining the impact of billing systems on the extent of roaming fraud and making the business case for a migration from interconnect to event based billing – potentially replacing TAP file management as we currently know it!
• Assessing the risk of prepaid fraud at the different stages leading up to consumer purchase
  • card manufacture
  • card issue
  • top-up / recharge
• Quantifying the cost savings that NRTRDE for roaming services would achieve
• Evaluating the potential solutions and exploring the initiatives set out by the TMF and the GSMA

• Why can't I steer and negotiate IOTs more quickly?
• How will the NRTRDE affect the wholesale billing process and how will this impact roaming fraud prevention initiatives?
  • forecasting time horizon for implementation
  • choice of supplier(s)
  • price range,etc
• When will the paper mountain of bilateral roaming agreements stop?
• Is there a real solution in the Roaming Agreement Exchange proposal?

• Contributing to roaming profits increase by creating optimised synergies between organisational competencies
  • roaming marketing
  • promotion of roaming services
  • tariffs policy
  • reports
  • new value-added services development
• Developing strategy based on roaming behaviors of the customer and then briefing creative departments on how to capitalise on visible trends
• Coordinating marketing communication activities for tourists and working on the creation of Turkcell's awareness for tourists – maximised market capture of inbound roamers
• Working closely with DM agencies as well as advertising agencies to devise:
  • Brochures
  • Commercials
  • Digiboards
  • Web presence

• Providing a high quality turnkey solution enabling mobile phones in-flight
• Overcoming issues of regulation and successfully meeting the certification process
• Opening up new territory to subscribers,providing a more complete roaming product and increased roaming revenues
• What are the implications for price elasticity – will access to lower rates improve the demand for voice and SMS communication over current airline systems and in general?
• Outlining standard roaming charging principles,i.e.following the same pattern as land based IOTs but offering ‘duty-free' rates
• Forecasting for uptake over the next 3-5 years and examining the remaining challenges of full service capability:Emirates Airlines update

• Opening up new territory to HPLMNs – providing a more complete roaming product and increased roaming revenues
• MCP – outlining current company status and partnership developments
• Examining maritime concepts and understanding how mobile roaming translates to sea faring voyages
• Overcoming the technical challenges of mobile roaming whilst at sea – what are the available solutions and how will QoS be maintained?
• Identifying and analysing ITU number resource and related carrier (wholesale) issues

• Examining the Pan-European MVNO business model:managing a cost efficient offering with international operations
• Focusing on international calls:is it possible to target different ethnic groups with the same mobile offering?
• Developing the mobile offering in several countries and adapting it to suit different markets
• What are the benefits for a network operator in doing business with MVNOs?
• What are the key success factors of launching an MVNO in different markets?
• Planning for the future international reach of the offer:launching MVNOs in other European countries or seek other business models?

• Examining the business perspective and challenges:
  • Handling increasing services and operators worldwide with limited resources
  • Managing increasing dependency on non EU operators
• Outlining the 'Open Connectivity' context – the GSMA led initiative
• Optimising roaming team organizational (r)evolution – harnessing market trends and securing related business in a proficient manner
• Analysing information system analysis
  • Establishing efficiency controls
  • What to improve and how?
• Evaluating available brokerage solutions – a current market overview perspective
• Identifying the pro's and con's of brokerage
• What is the rationale behind outsourcing IREG and TADIG testing?
• Seeking adequate test outsourcing – determining the main decision drivers behind our RFQ
• Mapping out our short to long term perspective

• What part do alliances and groups play in creating a VHE?
• What are the prime constituents of a VHE for basic and value added roaming – what elements drive a uniform experience?
• Reinforcing location based services with compelling content:
  • multi-lingual customer services
  • beyond destination content services
  • delivering network driven services offering recurring revenue charges
• How best to capitalise on assisted and managed roaming and deliver VAS from a central platform

• Examining the business case for harnessing carrier services and their capacity to deliver bandwidth hungry services with greater efficiency – how will this alter the competitive environment in respect of roaming?
• Building a new business model for 3G roaming given current levels of cost/pricing (for data roaming to take off)
• Alleviating the perception of cost as a prohibitive barrier to data roaming
• Examining the operational implications of running GRX data over a private IP network
• How will VoiP/Skype on mobile phones impact GPRS/3G traffic?
• Solutions to 3G data roaming – what else can you use GRX for?

• Are today's W-CDMA networks delivering added value over GSM/GPRS?
  • CapEx
  • OpEx
  • QoE
  • QoS
  • unique services not viable on 2G
• Considering future traffic predictions and the demand push for services whilst roaming
• Examining the handover challenge – not how but when?
• Dealing with additional challenges from hierarchical cell structures (hotspots)
• Bridging the growing gap between what is being standardised and what is being deployed and the need to align your roaming strategy to compensate

• Determining the potential market for interstandard roaming
• Overcoming the technical challenges of achieving roaming between different network types:
  • GSM-WLAN
  • GSM-CDMA
  • GSM-TDMA
• Undertaking strategies to adapt roaming processes to enable interstandard roaming
• Exploiting the uptake of CDMA 450 in emerging markets given the capability to transmit over long distances and its cost being one-tenth of a CDMA 1900 network
• Resolving issues that stand in the way of GSM-CDMA roaming
  • partnerships/alliances
  • the availability and cost of handsets
  • QoS
• Forecasting and ensuring optimum RoI from interstandard roaming services

• What dual-mode handsets are currently available on the market?
• Outlining the functionality and usability of current dual-mode handsets
• Provisioning technical support for dual-mode handsets whilst at home and abroad
• Assessing the level of demand for WiFi only handsets
• Formulating realistic handset pricing for the corporate and consumer markets
• What solutions have been developed to overcome battery life limitations?
• Determining whether the performance requirements for supporting VoWiFi have been met and whether a viable roaming proposition can be achieved
• What does the trend in mobile handset and personal device convergence pose for roaming revenue given alternative access capability?

• Assessing the requirements of the roaming user and what current roaming services are on offer
  • Mobile Data products such as an Online Mobile Office
  • WiFi and plain mobile internet access (through datacards and connectivity software)
• Are 2G/3G data roaming and WiFi roaming competing businesses?
• How can operators build on their key strengths in the roaming market?
• Examining the technical architecture for 2G-3G/WiFi data roaming
• Exploring the role of carriers as intermediaries in the value chain

• Examining the business models for offering international roaming services that bypass traditional mobile roaming
• Forecasting the demand and identifying the customer base for wireless VoIP based international roaming services
• What level of VoWLAN coverage is necessary to enable a viable international roaming service?
• Examining the role of SIP based networks in enabling domestic and international roaming
• Using a Bluetooth/WiFi box to eliminate GSM network access

• Is it service substitution or can WiFi roaming complement and enhance the operator mix?
• What level of WLAN / WiMAX coverage is necessary to enable roaming WVoIP – will campus solutions erode business user roaming minutes?
  • Fixed Mobile Convergence:what will it be its impact on roaming revenues?
• How will client software from the likes of iSkoot affect traditional usage by enabling Skype,Google Talk,Yahoo Messenger (etc) on cellular phones?