With LTE build-outs accelerating in many regions, the need for international roaming is becoming a hot one, and a key driver for providers of intercarrier IPX (IP Exchange) services. The new 4G opportunities for IPX are particularly linked to VoLTE, which is starting to be deployed in earnest this year. But with Vodafone claiming last year there would be ‘no room’ left for independent IPX providers, as carriers build their own services, it was notable that, just as VoLTE was opening new doors, consolidation was already taking place in that sector.
The acquisition of one IPX player, Aicent, by another, Syniverse, suggests that growth may be channelled towards the big operators, many of which are extending their IPX businesses, as seen in a rush of activity this month by firms such as Telefonica. Logically, there should be more revenue to go around on the mobile side, as the cellcos migrate to an all-IP network and launch a rising number of services on that. As Tele2, a new entrant to the game, puts it, ‘an IPX solution can be compared to a big pipe in which there are many smaller pipes that carry different services, such as HD Voice, data and LTE roaming’. Therefore, the more services, the better for these providers, hence the fillip from VoLTE.
This market requires scale, though, and Syniverse, whose merger with another carrier services provider, Mach, was finalized a year ago, is clearly building itself up to be a viable independent alternative to the carriers’ own offerings, alongside rivals like Comfone, Sybase 365, BICs and TNS. It is shaping up to be a formidable player in LTE and IP roaming hubs and other intercarrier services.
Aicent brings particular strengths among Asian mobile operators as well as enterprises. Syniverse will benefit from an expanded footprint of connections to support roaming, interconnection and A2P (application-to-person) services. Aicent also provides cloud-based analytics tools to monitor quality of service from end-to-end, and increasingly important issue for operators as they fight to compete on the basis of customer experience even when users are roaming.
Syniverse, with its roots in SMS and MMS interworking, has been expanding its activities in LTE and IMS roaming and interoperability. When it merged with Mach, it claimed to support 900 operators worldwide, while Mach had 650 customers, including enterprises and wireline providers as well as the core base of cellcos.
In early 2013, Syniverse announced its LTE Hub, which provides a portfolio of 4G roaming services, including customer care, billing, clearing and settlement. This is built around its Prime IPX Network Solution, which connects operators to the firm’s global all-IP network and a suite of 4G solutions. These include Diameter and SIP signalling to support LTE and IMS interworking and roaming, as well as compatibility with legacy networks; real time tracking of all the data travelling over the IPX system, which can be harnessed to optimize the customer experience; clearing and settlement; and interoperability for all kinds of messaging including video and RCS.
However, Syniverse knows it will need even broader capabilities to demonstrate to its customers that it can enable a profitable IP roaming model, and to fight off the big carriers. Cloud-based services and real time intelligence are important, and feature in both the Mach and Aicent purchases.
Many operators have their own carrier IP businesses, with notable examples including KPN’s iBasis, Tata, TeliaSonera and Vodafone. The UK giant created a dedicated Carrier Services unit a year ago, built around its Cable & Wireless Worldwide acquisition and headed by Brian Fitzpatrick, who made the claims (in an interview with telecoms.com) that there would be no space left for third parties. Vodafone is investing heavily in MPLS and says it will have the world’s largest physical MPLS infrastructure by the end of this year to support a wide range of solutions for operators, including IPX.
“What we’re doing, pointing the industry towards an IPX access, is quite threatening to third party aggregators, because for the first time their business model is in question,” he said in the interview. “The industry doesn’t need third party IPX but it does need to connect to Vodafone because we have 20% of the world’s handsets. And while everyone wants to come to us we’re just giving them a better door to come through.”
He claimed that independent IPX providers do not connect directly into Vodafone for LTE roaming, so there is an additional link in the chain, adding to cost and reducing quality of service. By contrast, Carrier Services provides a direct integration with the Vodafone 4G network.
However, the rationale for the independents remains clear ‘ the ability to connect all the operators which do not have the resources to build their own IPX infrastructure, and to provide value added services to smaller cellcos. The merger of Mach and Syniverse highlighted the growing opportunity in IPX-based roaming.
The main competitor to the mobile interconnect hub that the combined firm will support is Comfone, but firms with previously narrower scope, such as KPN’s iBasis or Transaction Network Services, are expanding into full roaming ‘ iBasis launched its LTE Signalling Exchange last year, for instance. And there are new approaches emerging, including ‘as a service’ offerings. Recently, wholesale carrier services firm BICS partnered with Aicent itself, to interconnect their IPX communities and support hosted, IP-based interworking and roaming services, and this week, BICS added HD Voice to its platform and said it was VoLTE-ready too.
IPX-based LTE roaming will become particularly critical once VoLTE starts to be rolled out by most 4G cellcos and not just a handful. The 4G voice platform is in the news this week, with Japan’s NTT Docomo promising it in July and AT&T going live in a few seed markets (though without supporting handsets at first).
Opening up IPX access easily to all operators is the goal of the initiative launched last year by the GSM Association and another industry body, the i3forum. They are coordinating live commercial pilots for voice IPX, to be conducted by mobile and fixed operators including Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and TeliaSonera. These pilots will be used to formulate the technical and commercial agreements needed to use IPX to interconnect voice services on a broad basis, and avoid the tangle of bilateral roaming deals which characterized ‘ and slowed down ‘ roaming in previous mobile generations.
New IPX moves from European carriers:
‘ Tele2 of Sweden joined the race this week, announcing an IPX solution for carriers, mobile operators and content providers. It will offer services including streaming content, HD Voice, and LTE roaming on top of its Tele2 Eurocore data backbone, which connects all the company’s European operating units in one single network.
‘ The big push came from Telefonica Global Solutions, the Spanish giant’s multinational wholesale and roaming unit, which has unveiled a broad, integrated portfolio of services called IPX Suite. This aims to help Telefonica customers step from IP into the IPX world with a multi-service sharing framework for their interconnection needs. It has been tested for the past year among Telefonica operating companies and complies with GSMA requirements. Services include VoIPX, Sigtran Signalling, GPRS/GRX, LTE Diameter, LTE data roaming and RCS IPX Hub. It also provides roaming services, enterprise options such as SMS A2P, and supports MVNEs.
‘ IDT, a provider of wholesale carrier services, is integrating IPX into its global network. Its main offering is focused on voice and runs on a Packet Voice Internetworking Exchange compliant with i3 Forum and GSMA specs. CMO Ben Hirsch said that the single dedicated connection established between operators supported good security and QoS, adding: ‘Voice calls can be up to 40% longer when the voice quality is crystal clear, so an offering like IPX can have a significant impact on the volume of minutes carried on an operator’s network.’
The IPX platform:
IPX is the next generation, all-IP successor to GRX (GPRS Roaming Exchange, the key roaming framework for 2G and 3G data). IPX was designed to support consistent user experience even on partner systems, and so can support the rising use of service level agreements in mobile, and the introduction of tariffs tiered by QoS levels. It does this by guaranteeing enough bandwidth to keep services running at optimum speeds. It is increasingly being adopted as a standard for interconnecting fixed and mobile carriers, MVNOs and over-the-top providers, enabling international giants like BT to work with large numbers of partners and deliver common services across vast networks.
IPX in the mobile world lives within a GSMA-defined communications ecosystem which supports multiple services – voice, data and signalling – over a single IP connection and provides many other benefits, including enhanced voice quality, cascaded billing and payments and ‘ because an IPX is physically and logically separate from the public internet – security. Within this, IPX enables the use of Diameter signalling for the exchange of policy, authentication and mobility information between networks as users roam, and for local break-out (LBO), a more efficient approach to handling roaming traffic, which reduces latency and boosts data rates by offloading traffic to the roaming network, rather than routing it back to the home system.
An IPX approach could save operators the time and complexity of opening up their individual SIP interfaces to one another to enable VoLTE roaming, but will not, of course, remove the need to negotiate commercial deals or comply with changing regulations. However, the GSMA believes its new partnership will also help to draw up templates for commercial contracts to reduce time to market.