Why Managed Roaming Services are essential for mobile operators

The traditional roaming landscape is facing a major turning point. International roaming has transitioned from a premium add-on service into a highly technology-driven space. With consumers rapidly adopting 5G-enabled roaming services and travel eSIMs, the new roaming ecosystem players, including eSIM aggregators, local networks, private networks and satellite operators, are capturing an increasing share of the international traveler’s spend.

By 2030, wholesale and retail roaming revenues attributed to consumer, travel eSIM, and IoT mobile connections will exceed $70 billion, with consumer and IoT roaming data usage projected to increase by an overwhelming 140%. Another prediction shows that wholesale roaming revenue is expected to double to $20 billion by 2028. This surge also shows that there is not just an increased demand for data but also the diversification of use-cases, ranging from always-on consumer connectivity to connected vehicles and industrial IoT.

For traditional Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), this presents both an opportunity and a challenge. While demand is rising, the competitive pressure is intensifying. Operators that fail to modernize their roaming strategies risk losing relevance, margin, and customer loyalty. To remain competitive, operators must rethink how they approach roaming by moving away from fragmented, internally managed models toward more agile, data-driven, and scalable solutions. This is where managed roaming services emerge as a strategic necessity rather than a tactical option.

In this article, we will explore why navigating the modern roaming landscape independently is both commercially unviable and operationally challenging. We will also present our managed roaming services and how they deliver tangible, scalable results. 

Operating roaming services in-house may have been viable in the past, but today it has become a complex, resource-intensive task. The challenges span both commercial and operational domains, and they are becoming more pronounced as technologies and partnerships evolve.

• Wholesale roaming management, such as negotiating competitive Inter-Operator Tariff (IOT) discounts and agreements, is not straightforward. It requires cross-team roaming expertise, extensive market intelligence, and coordinated efforts across multiple internal departments.
• Lack of visibility into industry benchmarks results in missed savings opportunities. Without access to comparative data on pricing, traffic flows, and partner performance, operators find themselves at a major disadvantage when negotiating with larger or more sophisticated players.
• Expanding the roaming footprint through partner relationships across multiple regions is increasingly difficult as it involves lengthy negotiations, regulatory considerations, and technical validations. As a result, this slows down time-to-market and limits the operator’s ability to provide seamless coverage.
• Fragmented internal processes lead to delayed financial visibility. This is because revenue assurance, billing reconciliation, and dispute management are handled by separate teams, resulting in financial inefficiencies and potential revenue leakage. In many cases, financial exposure appears months after roaming services have been provided resulting in a reconciliation error or financial leakage.

• Managing the complexity of evolving technologies such as VoLTE, VoNR, and 5G SA requires ongoing investment in terms of testing, integration, and maintenance.
• International Roaming Expert Group (IREG) testing requires manual verification, cross-vendor incompatibility resolution, and SIM-related logistics management while Transferred Account Data Interchange Group (TADIG) testing validates call detail records, pricing, and billing engines. As a result, these systems lead to time-to-market delays.
• Proactive monitoring of roaming quality is essential as overlooked network accuracy degrades roaming quality, increases operational complexity, and slows down issue resolution, leading to customer dissatisfaction and churn.

For successful roaming management, operators must consider outsourcing roaming to gain a competitive advantage and avoid challenges with internally managed roaming services.

Whether you are powering IoT devices globally or providing connectivity to international travelers, managed roaming services offers significant advantages:

• Focus on core business: By freeing internal resources, Managed roaming allows operators to focus on their business needs such as network transformation initiatives. It even improves customer experience and service quality by enabling them to scale efficiently as roaming requirements evolve, thereby transforming roaming into a strategic business asset.
• Increase roaming profitability: It optimizes traffic allocation and wholesale costs through expert negotiations leading to improved roaming margins. In addition, it allows operators access to industry benchmarks and market intelligence, enabling them to make informed decisions and continuously improve their roaming strategies.
• Accelerate growth: It enables faster onboarding of new roaming partners along with a quicker rollout of VoLTE and 5G roaming services ensuring a rapid expansion of their roaming footprint. This agility allows operators to capitalize on emerging opportunities and respond to market demands, such as travel eSIM adoption or IoT connectivity expansion.
• Reduce operational costs: With roaming managed services, operators can access experienced roaming experts along with advanced platforms, waiving off the operational overheads needed for maintaining a dedicated roaming team, tools, and infrastructure. It even eliminates investment requirements in testing and analytical tools and continuous training, improving financial flexibility and scalability.

BICS offers Managed Roaming Services that are designed to match every operator’s specific objectives, supporting your business across 4 major pillars: 

• Rapid deployment of new technologies and services
• Optimization of roaming user experience
• Maximization of roaming profitability
• End-to-end management of financial governance

By combining technical expertise, commercial acumen, and advanced analytics, BICS’ comprehensive suite of managed roaming services provides:

• Roaming Footprint Management: Leverage an expert team for end-to-end TADIG and IREG testing services and identification of strategic roaming partners. Expand your global reach with high-quality roaming connections in new markets, along with new service launches that improve coverage and service optimization through footprint planning.
• Roaming Business Management: Maximise wholesale cost savings and profitability through expert roaming agreement negotiations including IOT discounts and roaming partner relationship management. Access deep traffic analysis and business performance reporting alongside strategic recommendations and market benchmarking.
• Roaming analytics and business intelligence: Utilize roaming usage insights and Quality of Experience (QoE) data to steer customer traffic intelligently, improve service quality, and enhance customer satisfaction. Monitor performance via executive dashboards and continuous KPI monitoring.
• Technical implementation & operations: Ensure roaming service reliability across all technologies through continuous service assurance and quality management enabled by operational partner communication, interoperability testing, and troubleshooting. Manage launches seamlessly using our go-live project management tool with billing and settlement support.
• Future-ready roaming: Enable 5G Standalone roaming, VoLTE and VoNR roaming readiness, Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Protocol for N32 INterconnect Security (PRINS) implementation, IoT roaming optimization, and next-gen roaming service rollouts. This future-ready approach ensures long-term competitiveness.

BICS stands as a trusted partner for roaming transformation for mobile operators. Capitalize on our deep industry expertise for roaming business optimization and profitability improvement:

• Access direct contacts with over 400 roaming partners to drive your business and operations
• Leverage an extensive global network of MNO, MVNO, and IoT partnerships
• Benefit from our proven expertise across SMS, voice, data, VoLTE, and 5G roaming
• Flexible engagement models tailored to each operator’s needs
• Focus on customer outcomes through our entirely vendor-neutral approach
• Extract advanced analytics and reporting through BICS’ SMART Webvision

Additionally, BICS has been recognized by Kaleido Intelligence as a Champion and High Flyer Roaming Vendor, reinforcing its dominance in the roaming services space.

In a rapidly evolving telecom landscape, managed roaming services offer a powerful antidote to the traditional roaming ecosystem, bringing greater agility, efficiency, and innovation for mobile operators.

BICS’ Managed Roaming Services offer a powerful combination of commercial strategy, operational excellence, and advanced data analytics. We empower operators to maximize roaming profitability and rapidly expand their global footprint, positioning them as future-ready leaders in international connectivity.

Today, seamless connectivity is no longer an option, it’s a strategic pillar of international communications. Those who embrace managed services will be best positioned to lead the next wave of global telecommunications.