Knowledge is power, and by gaining a complete view of network roaming activity at any given time, a new world of opportunities can be created to increase the number of subscribers using services and maximise the revenue gained from each customer.

Despite customer enthusiasm for data services, silent data roamers remain a major source of lost revenue alongside roamers steered to rival operators and those suffering from technical-level service issues. By addressing these problems, operators can increase their ability to monetise traffic on their network and ensure existing infrastructural investments and commercial roaming agreements are achieving the expected levels of anticipated revenue.

However, before these problems can be solved, operators need the ability to gain access to the critical performance and intelligence data that enables the fast identification of opportunities and thorough assessment of where any barriers lie.

The information needed to unlock this potential is already present within an operators’ network traffic, it just needs to be mined and interpreted – which is the reason BICS has developed business intelligence tool SMART Webvision. Using SMART, operators can access and analyse critical performance indicators and fully assess subscriber QoE to identify potential market opportunities, all through a fully hosted end-to-end solution. As this is designed to work in harmony with BICS’ mosaic portfolio, it comes at a much lower cost than non-carrier big data analytics tools.

SMART Webvision offers deep insights into all roaming activity on 2G, 3G and 4G networks, comprising information on both inbound and outbound roamers. Business-critical insights can then be harvested, including reports on the number and locations of silent roamers on the network, subscriber activity trends – including which data services and apps are being used – and analysis of the quality of experience being received.

By utilising big data analytics, operators can quickly see where network improvements need to be made or when specific marketing initiatives could be launched to drive forward further service utilisation.

At a commercial level, these insights can be used to ensure agreements about preferred roaming partner status are being upheld, and identify opportunities for an increase in roaming traffic with other international operators through specific agreements or preferential rates for popular services.

In addition, SMART Webvision offers VIP tracking technology which enables the following of a specific customer or group of customers’ experiences on the network. This data can then be utilised to ensure those with identified problems receive an improved experience to reduce churn and enables specific customer segments to have their experience steered and traced to ensure the quality of service remains high. These ‘tiered roaming services’ offer yet another avenue for operators to increase the monetisation potential of network assets and ensure end users are given the highest possible quality of service.

SMART Webvision offers a range of business intelligence tools and unique advanced reporting, based on its complete view of signalling traffic going through the BICS network. This allows the opening of a range of new markets for customers and also includes fraud protection features to identify any unusual and criminal activity taking place on the network.

BICS can help operators unlock the data hidden within their network traffic to produce the insights which can have a real business impact and revolutionise roaming profitability.

An article by Damion Rose, Product Manager Signalling | BICS, 24th of August 2015