Steering of Roaming: A Key Roaming Management Tool

What is Steering of Roaming? Steering of roaming, or preferred roaming, is the process by which a mobile operator decides which partner their subscribers will use whilst roaming. These choices of roaming partner are usually made in order to take advantage of better prices from partners or to allow bi-lateral agreements with partners to be honoured. Increasingly, however, due to the network crunch caused by exploding data usage, they are being used to select partners based on quality concerns. Today there are two main methods in use: network based and SIM based steering. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages. Some operators will use both approaches together. Some operators who see that traffic is being steered away from them feel that steering is somehow "unfair". However the GSMA views steering as both legal and desirable. In particular it enables a market in roaming to develop and promotes competition between operators. GSMA documents BA.30 and IR.73 give more technical detail. Network Based Steering This approach uses a system installed in the home network (or linked to the home network from a remote system). When one of the home network's subscribers attempts to register to a foreign network, the foreign network asks for permission from the home network. The steering system decides whether that registration is wanted or not. If it is, the request is accepted. If it is not wanted, the system issues a message to decline connection. There is no specifically designated message for declining a connection request. Instead there are a number of messages that can be used. Typically these are: Roaming not allowed Data missing Unexpected data value System failure These have different effects. Some messages, for example, whilst effective can have undesirable side effects. Some of these side effects can include denial of service to the subscriber or confusing the engineering team by masking problems in the network. Care therefore needs to be taken in understanding exactly what effects the different messages might have. In particular a good trade off needs to be found between steering "accuracy" and subscriber experience. The GSMA guidelines on steering of roaming give a good overview of the different types of messages that can be used. Generally a steering system will reject attachments up to three times in an attempt to find a desired network. This is the recommendation of the GSMA in order to avoid steering having too great an impact on the customer experience. Some platforms attempt to defeat anti steering systems by issuing continued rejects until a desired network is found. However this can lead to the subscriber getting no service at all. Because of the impact that steering has on subscriber experience, and because of the costs of signalling, intelligent steering systems will not attempt to steer an individual attach request if the overall steering targets are being achieved. Usually this is subject to a variety of business rules to optimise this process. Network based steering is highly dynamic; targets can be changed instantly. It is also easy to roll out as it works with any type of handset. However it is a probabilistic based system. This means that, depending upon network coverage and the number of networks available, there are limits to the steering accuracy that can be achieved. These concerns about accuracy only become significant when there are more than 3 operator partners to choose from in a territory. Steering solutions need to handle manual attachment requests correctly. They need to allow the handset to attach to the requested network. This is important because the subscriber may experience some local difficulty with the preferred network. In my own

experience I have been "steered" to a particular network where I found the voice quality to be unacceptably poor. steering system did not allow me to do manual selection and so I was effectively left with an unuasable service.

My network's

Solutions also need to ensure that voice and data services are attached to the same operator. If this is not done, the phone resets with a loss of connectivity for the subscriber. This has led to the view amongst some operators that certain phones "lock up" if you attempt to steer them. For a long time Blackberry handsets were quoted as suffering from this "problem". In our experience this is nothing to do with the handset but is purely down to a poor design in the steering platform itself. Systems also need to address intermittent coverage issues correctly. These can cause difficulty in attachment if coverage drops during the procedure. A classic example of this is the subscriber who boards the train to the city from the airport. As the train goes under bridges etc there are momentary drops in network connection. The phone might not complete the steering and attachment approval processs in the time between drops... and so the subscriber never gets a connection.

SIM Based Steering SIM based steering uses the preferred network list contained within the subscribers SIM. To meet the demands of the dynamic modern market, this list needs to be regularly updated and modified. Typically this is done by an over the air (OTA) messaging system. Also, because the list is usually only read by the handset during power up, it is normal to include an applet on the SIM card to force an immediate reading of the list. (If this was not done, the first time that the list would probably be read would be when the roamer switches his phone back on when he arrives at the airport back home!) SIM based steering does not use up signalling resourcing. Neither is it a probabilistic system. However it does suffer from significant logistic issues. When an operator first seeks to roll out the necessary SIM applet he may well find it difficult to find space on the SIM card. Generally SIM based steering is considered when operators feel the need to implement very high steering targets, typically in the area of 90% or more in markets where they have more than three partners (as you can see from the graph above, this can be difficult to achieve using network based steering). Many question whether the application of such high targets makes sense. If partners get no traffic at all, they may question why they should maintain a relationship with you. Usually SIM based steering is implemented in conjunction with network based steering. How Desirable is 100% Steering Accuracy? Many people seem to judge steering systems primarily on accuracy. However 100% accuracy, meaning 100% of traffic being reliably sent to the chosen operator, may not be a desirable objective. It is very easy to get 100% accuracy. You simply issue a Roaming not allowed (RNA) message to every attempted attachment from a non- preferred network. However such an approach would mean that when your preferred network is not available, for whatever reason, then your customer cannot use an alternative. This would deny him service and would deny revenue to you. Your partner networks that are denied any traffic in this way may also start to question whether there is any point in being your partner, incurring costs for maintaining working connections without any attendent revenue. In my view, therefore, it makes much more sense to have a softer approach to your steering policy. steering policy, read my article on setting roaming steering targets. For a discussion about setting

What is the Business Case for Implementing a Steering System? A steering system gives you the power of choice. This means you can choose your partners dynamically based upon price, mutual traffic deals or delivered quality. Price The business case for implementing steering can be made on currently offered prices alone. For one of our customers, the business case was made simply upon the savings that could be immediately made on their roaming partner invoices from just one country. Once you are known to have the ability to choose partners, the prices that you are offered by your partners will tend to go down as well.

Mutual Traffic Deals The wholesale roaming market is becoming highly dynamic. In order to reach short term goals it is becoming common to offer mutual traffic deals to partners. Without a dynamic steering system, you cannot participate. Delivered Quality Different networks offer different levels of quality. You may well want to segment your roaming subscribers based on the dimensions of price and quality. This might mean, for example, sending heavy data using business customers to a high cost, high quality partner and price sensitive consumers to a low cost, lower quality partner. You may also need to be able to switch roamers away from a partner quickly if there is a major quality issue. Anti Steering of Roaming Anti-steering of roaming is defined by the GSMA document BA.30 as being any technical method that can effectively frustrate, counter act or undo the effects of steering of roaming. The GSMA unequivocally prohibits the application of anti-steering. However, at least two vendors of steering platforms also own patents on anti-steering systems and a number of operators feel themselves to be victims of such systems. To frustrate network based steering, an anti-steering system would typically be implemented on a GLR (Gateway Location Register). There are other, legitimate reasons for implementing a GLR, so it does not necessarily mean that anti steering of roaming is being used by an operator just because they have a GLR in place. One method of anti-steering is for the system to intercept a reject message sent to the handset (in response to an attachment request from the network). Instead of relaying this message to the handset so that it attempts to attach to another network, the anti-steering system re-sends the attachment request. To the steering platform this looks either as if there are no other networks available or as if the subscriber is attempting to manually attach. If the steering platform is compliant with GSMA guidelines it will therefore allow and attachment at this point. Detection of Anti-Steering Anti-steering platforms naturally try to hide their presence from investigation as much as is possible. This means that, although SS7 signalling analysis can indicate the probable presence of a system, it cannot prove it. At Evolved Intelligence, to prove the presence of anti-steering, we use a radio probe located in the suspected territory and SS7 analysis on an affected outbound steering system. The combination allows records to be compared and the presence of anti-steering to be proven. Related Application: Roaming Dashboard An essential companion to a steering system, is a roaming dashboard system. platform and whether you are making your targets or not. This shows you the performance of your steering

The system can also give you information on who is steering against you. This gives you vital input for planning your own steering strategy.