The EU regulation, which is designed to increase competition between smaller service providers and large operators and provide end-users with more choice, requires MNOs and other mobile access providers to offer wholesale roaming access at EU regulated rates to other MNOs and to MVNOs/MVNEs that wish to offer roaming services to their customers. MNOs are obliged to provide access seekers with draft contracts within a month and implement the agreement within three months of the contract being signed. Leading multi-lateral roaming hub provider,Link2One, today announced that its Open Connectivity roaming hub can significantly speed up the time it takes for mobile network operators (MNOs) to become fully compliant with the latest EU roaming regulations on wholesale access.
Ralf Weigand, General Manager, Link2One, commented: “Link2One acts as a neutral party to both access seekers and providers, reducing the potential of conflicts and minimizing negotiation as well as implementation times. As the fastest growing international roaming hub and being based in the EU, it was natural for us to create a facility that would encourage MVNOs and MVNEs to enter the roaming value chain. Our offer provides a solution which makes MNO compliance both quick and easy, releasing MNOs from the burden of dealing with many access seekers at once, and creating significant savings through the use of one connection for all.”
For smaller service providers, the value of joining hubs is related to their rapid and cost-effective means for developing a roaming business. The Link2One solution offers commercial benefits by reducing the number of connections and contractual agreements required to connect service providers to operator networks. With just one agreement, MVNOs are able to join any number of operator roaming networks. Meanwhile operators can receive requests from multiple MVNOs and connect them all using one contract and one connection, creating both time and cost savings.
Link2One provides a hub framework of multilateral roaming agreements for data, prepaid, voice and 3G services. The hub benefits operators by providing a ‘plug and play’ roaming business, which allows them to reduce time to market for roaming services. Uniquely, the Link2One hub also provides operators with access to a single financial and clearing settlement pool with integrated payments. Operators greatly benefit from this significantly simplified approach to roaming, which allows them to more quickly and profitably grow and expand into new markets. As the largest roaming hub of this kind in the world, Link2One can quickly launch a comprehensive roaming business that provides more global coverage than any other hub.