All Roamers are Different - Sicap Treats Them That Way

Device and SIM management firm, Sicap has announced the live deployment by a major operator of an intelligent platform which individually steers yet does not bind roaming customers to preferential networks.

The Sicap platform takes roaming control a step beyond the "one for all" SIM updates of other solutions, to provide individual, event-based and device sensitive network updates, which in practice means that only customers actually roaming outside their domestic network are targeted.

As soon as a mobile subscriber arrives abroad, his PLMN (Public Land Mobile Network) list, used to rank networks in order of attachment priority, is updated specifically for that region.

Furthermore, Sicap over-the-air expertise deploys device and subscriber intelligence to rank networks based on the device specificities of the roamer or on roaming agreements which are preferential for instance for data users.

For operators, dynamically assisting their subscribers in picking up the right network is of high importance.

Firstly, because dynamic PLMN updates are a means of responding to commercial agreements in real time. No small task, considering that operators typically have hundreds of roaming contracts at any one time, and that 3G networks request the PLMN list status every 10 seconds.

Secondly, over-the-air steering guides roamers to the best value connection rather than forcing them as in the traditional network-based scenario. The Sicap dynamic PLMN update process allies competitive roaming charges and freedom of choice, both effective means of retaining customer loyalty.

Thirdly, Dynamic PLMN updating according to real-time subscriber location on a case by case basis eliminates mass campaigns and the infrastructure overloads that these entail.

Sicap Head of Device and SIM products Stéphane Jayet said, "Case by case dynamic network steering can generate huge savings for operators both by offloading network traffic required for mass campaigns, and by updating PLMN lists in real time. Our SIM OTA platform is totally SIM and device vendor-independent and interoperable. Plugged into an existing "hard" steering platform, it enables an average of 20% extra reduction in roaming invoices with partner networks."

Posted to the site on 17th February 2009