BARG LA meeting in Chile focuses on innovation of the mobile ecosystem towards VoLTE roaming

About 145 high level executives representing 21 Chilean mobile operators and 21 global companies in the mobile ecosystem attended the meeting of the GSMA Latin America Billing & Roaming Working Group (BARG LA), held on 28 and 29 March in Santiago de Chile. Hosted by Entel and Telefónica Chile the meeting brought together attendees from 17 countries who focused on the innovations needed to keep improving roaming both technologically and commercially.

The BARG LA meeting was opened by the Undersecretary for Telecommunications of Chile, Pedro Huichalaf Roa, who spoke about the state of telecommunications in Chile and highlighted the importance of public-private collaboration. Also at the opening were Sebastián Cabello, Head of GSMA Latin America, Manuel Araya, Regulatory and Corporate Affairs Manager at Entel, and Fernando Saiz, Director of Strategic Planning and Regulatory Affairs at Telefónica Chile.

VoLTE Roaming was the main technology discussed at the meeting, where the focus was on global standards, interconnection requirements and Cloud VoLTE solutions. Among the future benefits of VoLTE Roaming are: more efficient use of spectrum than in traditional voice services and lower CAPEX; better call experience and improved connection time; can be deployed with video calls over LTE and RCS multimedia services; increases battery life by 40 per cent (compared with VoIP).

Claudio Reyes, from Antel Uruguay and Agustín Barría from Telefónica Chile, Chair and Deputy Chair of BARG LA, led the group during these two days of work, covering an extensive agenda that also addressed the following topics:

• Quality of service in Roaming: Tests, GSMA’s LTE GRQ Project
• Roam like at home: implementations in Latin America and Europe
• Grey routes and fraud
• Lessons learned from World Cup Brazil 2014 – the case of VIVO
• The future of the SIM Card: eSIM prospects
• Business cases: optimising A2P SMS and marketing strategies

Another key topic, wholesale services, was discussed by a panel of operators who addressed the present and future of international traffic. The members of the panel were Alfredo Fernandez, Head of Telefónica International Wholesale Services, Alan Ward, Head of Wholesale Services at Entel Chile, and Chris Bannister, CEO of WOM. The panel stressed that obtaining fair roaming rates in Latin America for consumers, based on adjustments in the wholesale market, is a strategic issue for the industry. It also concluded that reaching goals of this kind requires increasing attention from the highest levels among operators.

The BARG LA meeting was the first gathering for 2016 of this group of Latin American experts from mobile operators and service providers. The GSMA has four working groups, headed by the executives of GSMA member companies. The BARG LA working group will meet again at Mobile 360 Latin America, in Mexico City, from 20 to 22 September 2016.

Resources