With worldwide roaming revenues expected to reach US$50 billion in 2004 there is a growing need for mobile operators to have the skills and technology to manage this critical part of their business more efficiently. Dependency on legacy billing systems and a diminishing number of data clearinghouses will prove to be problematic and costly as the demand and complexity of the roaming business grows.

As latest trends indicate, competition among mobile operators is shifting from local services to international roaming. Operators have to be able to offer reliable and inexpensive services at the same level internationally as on their own home network.

From a business point of view, in order to be prepared for this roaming challenge, mobile operators will have to take the following key factors into consideration:

• Rapidly increasing volume of roaming revenues
• Growing demand for pre-paid and GPRS roaming
• New services have to be introduced quickly to satisfy customers
• Competition getting stronger
• Offering subscribers discounts and transparent packages for roaming: Re-pricing will be crucial

Also, there are upcoming changes from the technical side that operators will have to address:

• The GSMA has reduced the permitted number of partial GPRS records per file from 6 to 2
• TAP3.11 will arrive next May
• A new solution has to be implemented soon for handling High Usage Reports (HUR)