The Billing & Roaming Working Group at GSMA Latin America held its annual meeting to discuss the latest innovations in the sector. Sixteen national carriers attended the meeting along with different suppliers from the industry.
Key executives from more than 16 national carriers and mobile industry suppliers gathered in Oranjestad, Aruba for the Billing & Roaming Working Group of GSMA Latin America. At the meeting, participants discussed the challenges and opportunities for the business in Latin America and the Caribbean.
SETAR was the host of this important gathering where new products and solutions were presented along with benchmarking for business practices. In addition, roaming agreements were signed by different industry players from the region.
The meeting began on Wednesday, September 4th with a workshop focused on recent roaming developments in the supply of high-speed 4G LTE services. Special event participants and sponsors included BICS, Starhome, Syniverse and Tata Communications, whose specialists shared their visions with a very involved audience. The Billing & Roaming Working Group (BARG LA) meeting began on Wednesday afternoon and ended on Thursday, September 5th. During the meeting, the following issues were addressed:
• Summary of regulatory initiatives on roaming in Latin America
• The prospects for the roaming business at upcoming sports events in Brazil
• Opportunities on the U.S. data roaming market
• Roaming data bundles
• The impact of undesired international text messages
• The new role of roaming coordinators in the era of data and LTE
“The meeting of our Billing & Roaming Working Group created the ideal setting for all actors from the mobile industry to sit down together and discuss their ideas. This is part of our efforts to continue developing the roaming business in the region with an eye to offering users a better service while innovating with new retail and technical solutions”, affirmed Sebastián Cabello, Director of GSMA Latin America.
In July, GSMA published a report on the significant developments and innovations on the international roaming market in Latin America. These developments mainly included new package offers, lower prices and the implementation of measures to ensure transparency. According to the study, rates have dropped by up to 60% on average for data roaming and by 40% on voice roaming in the past three years. The study, which was carried out by BlueNote Management Consulting, analyzed the offer and variety of initiatives implemented by more than 40 operators in 14 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
“SETAR is proud to have been the co-host of this important meeting in Aruba to resolve the technical and billing issues of Roaming LTE. During the conference, we had time to explore the commercial challenges that we are facing as we work to create an attractive Roaming LTE service,” said Ival Vrolijk, the SETAR Manager for International & Interconnect Business.
The aim of the Roaming & Billing Working Group is to promote international roaming agreements among Latin American carriers and create the conditions necessary for the technical and retail implementation of all GSM roaming services. The group is comprised of executives specializing in roaming from the GSMA member carriers in Latin America. It meets three times a year in different locations across the region.