Mobile roaming works – mobile operator TelCell sees revenue boost

Roaming experts Starhome released some info today that shows how important mobile roaming can be for an operator. Caribbean network TelCell St. Maarten has seen a huge increase in the number of roaming minutes it is getting revenue from, thanks to customer-friendly roaming services.

Who is Starhome?

Starhome is a subsidiary of Comverse, and it provides value-added roaming services at the operator level. These can be as simple as allowing the operator to measure data usage on a customers device while they are abroad – which allows them to sell specific roaming data packages to users.

What’s the story?

Starhome has created several roaming solutions for TelCell – and the operator has reported a “spike” of 500,000 extra roaming minutes since the services were implemented. TelCell is claiming that the extra revenue generated by roaming this year alone will be $1 million.

What did Starhome do?

Starhome implemented two different services. The first is called Home Short Code, and the second is Intelligent Call Assistant. Home Short Code allows foreign roamers on the TelCell network to use the same short codes they would at home to access value-added services.  Intelligent Call Assistant is simply a system that “corrects” calls made while roaming. Dialing to familiar numbers can be more difficult because of extra codes that are needed to dial to or from specific countries. Intelligent Call Assistant will automatically correct a large number of possible mistakes made while roam-dialing, so that users won’t even realise they made a mistake. The idea is to allow roamers to use their devices the same way through TelCell as they would at home.

What we think?

TelCell St. Maarten is a small enough operator, in a small enough market, that roaming calls made by tourists to home account for almost half of the carriers revenue. $1 million might not be a drop in the bucket for larger operators, but it highlights important consumer behaviour. I know myself that if I’m abroad and I’m having difficulties making mobile calls, I’m pretty likely to just switch my phone off and give up. According to Starhome, 60% of dropped or misdialed calls made while roaming are simply never re-dialled. It’s part of the whole “holiday” experience, right? You’re harder to reach because your phone will behave unpredictably. A lot of people just accept that when you’re out of the country, you’re impossible to reach by mobile. But if you can be guaranteed that roaming will be an easy, fluid experience, then you’re going to use your phone a lot more.