ROCCO RESEARCH: OPERATOR DESIGNED 5G ROAMING SURVEY LAUNCHED TODAY

Intro to the project by Jason Bryan CEO ROCCO

For many years we’ve been thinking about and talking about 5G Roaming.

  • Enhanced Mobile Broadband
  • Massive IoT
  • Low Latency

I remember attending a conference a few years ago where the 5G consultants asked, “What is it that you want for 5G Roaming?” The Operators in the room naturally were very clear, “simplicity”. Unfortunately as we all know, the roll out of new services is never that simple and every Operator we spoke to when designing this survey said

“5G Roaming is the most complex Roaming rollout we will face”

There is a lot of political pressure to move forwards on this project while many commercial and even some technical requirements are unclear. While there are many Operators now testing 5G Roaming, some of these tests are based on existing technology and more of a marketing exercise. We’ve been here before of course, VoLTE Roaming as you may have seen from this summer VoLTE Vision report is now on its way to wide market penetration for Roaming but its taken a long time to get there.

“What we want to uncover about the momentum on 5G Roaming is what will happen when and how” 

Let’s take for example “Network Slicing”. Network slicing allows a network operator to provide dedicated virtual networks with functionality specific to the service or customer over a common network infrastructure. Thus it will be able to support the numerous and varied services envisaged in 5G. And can perhaps be used for different user profiles for example Gold, Silver and Bronze. At the moment you might agree, Roaming is best endeavours, sure there’s quality differentiation but it comes from having 3G or 4G. This is a game changer and it’s needed for IoT but how many MNOs are really looking at it in a roaming context.

It would be great, whatever your position is on 5G Roaming if you could help us by completing the Survey below. Of course as always with ROCCO there will be a free Executive Summary report for all MNOs who take part in the survey. The survey was designed by Operators for Operators to respond to.

5G Roaming Strategy

You can also use this QR code to open the survey on your device. Responding to our surveys by your phone is extremely simple these days.

If you’re a Mobile Operator who attends the WAS meeting in Croatia, look out for me because I am behind the scenes recording a new podcast for ROCCO with Operators on 5G Roaming called “The Network Slice”. Any MNO interested in joining the podcast just let the ROCCO team know. Or drop us an email.