Maria Hochreiter of CK Hutchison and Co-Deputy Chair of GSMA Wholesale Agreements and Solutions (WAS) group, explains how a new GSMA tool makes it easier for operator partners to troubleshoot roaming services.
As mobile services become richer and more diverse, mobile network operators need a straightforward way to share information about incidents and outages with their roaming partners. To that end, the GSMA has just launched a new incident management tool that provides a centralised and standardised way for operators to exchange information relating to technical issues with roaming.
Historically, mobile operators have used ad-hoc or proprietary systems to share information about incidents with their roaming partners. For example, when an operator needs to create a ticket for a roaming partner, they have typically had to either use the proprietary tool employed by the partner or send an e-mail. With such fragmented communications, there is a risk that important information is omitted or obscured, leading to delays and inefficiencies.
Developed by Roamsys to meet requirements specified by the GSMA’s Inter-Operator Communications Task Force (IOCTF), the new tool ensures that when an operator creates a ticket, they input all the information required to give their roaming partner a good understanding of the issue. The partners can then start working immediately on resolving the problem. As well as supporting two-way bilateral communications between roaming partners, the tool enables a mobile operator to send out information to all their roaming partners alerting them to a new issue in their network.
Available to GSMA members, the cloud-based tool can be used to help troubleshoot incidents across radio access networks, transport links, core networks and other related infrastructure. By facilitating the fast and efficient exchange of information, the system should help roaming partners quickly establish which network element is responsible for the incident.
In this way, the incident management tool should speed up the resolution of faults, thereby delivering a better experience for roamers across a wide range of mobile services and devices, from consumer smartphones to enterprise IoT equipment and vehicles. Fast and clear inter-operator communications is increasingly important as the roaming relationships between operators expand to cover new services, such as VoLTE and VoNR, and new network systems, such as satellite-based direct-to-device (D2D) services. These trends mean there is a greater variety of potential technical incidents that could impact roaming services.
Versatile and very straightforward to adopt
Integrated into the GSMA’s existing roaming gateway framework, the new tool is technology neutral – it can help manage roaming relationships across a wide range of technologies including 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G non-standalone, 5G standalone and Wi-Fi, as well as satellite-based services. It has also been designed to support communications through roaming hubs in which multiple partners connect to a central platform, rather than establishing bilateral agreements with each operator.
If operators want to review their network quality, for example, the new tool can generate reports of roaming incidents over a specific timeframe, such as a month.
To access the application, the only step GSMA members have to take is to assign a specific user role within the roaming gateway. If they wish, operators can continue to use their existing ticketing systems internally: they can either use APIs to transfer information from their internal system into the GSMA’s tool or they can enter the necessary information manually.
As there are no significant technical or financial hurdles to adoption, operator members of the IOCTF are likely to begin using the new tool very quickly. Adoption should grow rapidly, as operators ask their roaming partners use the tool to open a new troubleshooting ticket. The IOCTF plans to conduct live demonstrations of the tool and run training programmes for operator staff who will be using it.
The tool is future-proof in the sense that it can be used by autonomous systems and AI agents, as well as human engineers. Indeed, by standardising inputs and outputs about technical incidents, the tool will support greater automation and the further development self-healing networks.
The IOCTF, which I chair, was set up in 2024, as a task force of the GSMA’s Wholesale Agreements and Solutions (WAS) group. Instigated by Hutchison and other operators, the group has a mandate to explore how communication between roaming partners could be improved. The members of the task force, which include roaming hubs, large operator groups, individual operators and other industry players, were able to input their requirements into the new incident management tool.
The IOCTF is now developing systems and processes to improve the exchange of information between operators to enable the smooth and efficient launch of new services. That information could relate to scheduling and testing, as well as facilitating commercial and technical agreements.
By aligning the global industry around standardised processes, the IOCTF is focused on delivering substantial and sustainable benefits for end-users of roaming services around the world. The rollout of the incident management tool is the first step in a potentially massive improvement in inter-operation communication.
If you are a GSMA Member, access the Incident Management Ticketing Tool via the Roaming Gateway on Member Gateway and follow the instructions under ‘New Incident Features’.
GSMA Members can also access the User Guide on Member Gateway.
If you are a GSMA Member, and don’t have access to Member Gateway, please request it here.
If you would like to find out more about GSMA Membership, or become a Member, please visit GSMA Membership website.