On Sunday, June 9, 2002, at 07:45 , wimjam wrote:
> I guess what Benjamin is referring to roaming between operators. True,
> they
> are serial offenders,...they are all in the process of being fined
> serious
> money by the european union because of misconduct on roaming :-)
> but when you refer to roaming between GPRS and WLAN then assuming that
> both
> belong to the same authority (eg. the operator), this would be alot
> clearer
> on the cost side.
I don't think there will be a distinction between intra-consortium and
extra-consortium roaming from GPRS to WLAN.
Given the nature of WLAN being hot-spot, it is rather unlikely that
mobile operators will confine themselves to roaming only between their
own GPRS infrastructure and their own WLAN infrastructure. I'd be
surprised if they wouldn't at least try hard to target specific WLAN
operators for roaming agreements, for example those run by hotel chains
and airlines in airports etc.
> mixing it GPRS/WLAN roaming over different operators networks... well
> guess
> that is science fiction.... or only for the rich and famous.
Roaming doesn't have to be expensive ...
and it makes no difference whether it is intra- or extra network.
The reason why mobile phone roaming is expensive lies in the prevailing
paradigm that the home network will do the billing and carries the sole
risk. This may have made sense when this scheme was invented in the 80s,
but does it still make sense today ?
If that paradigm was to shift and billing would be carried out locally,
it would drastically reduce the risk associated with roaming, simplify
most technical issues related to roaming and boost competition. In the
process roaming services would become cost efficient and competitively
priced.
This applies all the more to WLAN services. It makes sense to use
external service providers with national, regional or even global
presence to carry out authentication, but that doesn't necessarily mean
that the authenticating entity should also be in charge of billing.
The internet may give some lead here. Services issuing and
authenticating digital certificates do just that - they do not get
involved in charging for other services provided by other parties, but
those parties may use the authentication services in order to do their
own billing.
We should hope that - WLAN and GPRS being internet services after all -
this internet way of sharing work along different responsibilities will
eventually be adopted in the mobile phone world too and not the other
way round.
Therefore, in an ideal world, there would be digital identity providers
which issue digital ID and authenticate against a flat fee on behalf of
just about any other service providers while other service providers
will charge for their services directly based on the identity
authenticated by the authentication provider. Then there would be two
alternative payment forms for any kind of roaming scenario:
- pay for your service over the counter directly
- receive a bill and pay via credit card or some other e-pay service
Thus, in a roaming context GPRS/WLAN this could work like this ...
1) Authentication
You get a SIM card from your mobile phone company which will also
function as a digital ID for internet services. When using internet
services elsewhere, your mobile phone company will provide
authentication services to the actual service provider (ie. other GPRS
network or WLAN hot spot operator). The mobile phone company will
receive a flat fee from the visited network for the authentication
service, but will not carry the risk and will not receive a share in the
revenue.
Authentication serves two main purposes. For one, it will have to
satisfy any legal requirements there may be to establish the identity of
a roamer in order to receive telecommunication services and thereby
avoids the need to complete forms and provide passport or id card before
service can be provided. Secondly, the trust that the visited network
has in the digital ID based on the authentication provider may determine
what form of payment will be acceptable and whether a deposit or
pre-payment is required.
2) Airtime provision
You get airtime directly from the airtime provider (ie. GPRS or WLAN)
and will be treated like a local subscriber of the airtime provider. The
airtime provider publishes tariffs and those tariffs are the same for
anyone, whether they are local subscribers or roamers.
Metering is done by the airtime provider and payment is made to the
airtime provider, most likely billing for local subscribers and credit
card or prepaid for roamers. Think of a restaurant: if you go there
every day for lunch, they may run a tap for you - if you are a tourist,
you pay cash or by credit card but you pay the same prices as the locals
do.
3) Billing service
You may be subscribed with an e-pay service or a credit card service
which in combination with your digital ID may allow you to pay for
roaming services through your e-pay account or credit card. In order for
this to happen, the airtime provider will need to a) trust your digital
ID and b) accept payment from the billing service. Nevertheless, the
metering is done by the airtime provider and the airtime provider claims
payment from the billing provider.
As with credit card services today, the billing service will add a
surcharge to your bill. This surcharge may be in the order of today's
credit card services, ie. 3-5% or it may be higher. However, even if it
was three times as much as with credit and debit cards (=> 9-15%), this
would be rather expensive but still be a bargain compared to today's
roaming surcharges on mobile phone networks.
And because airtime providers do their own metering, all the complexity
of today's roaming schemes, ie. CAMEL and TAP3 in GSM would be avoided,
further reducing cost.
Of course there is no reason why a mobile phone company may not be both
an authentication service provider and also a billing service provider.
But the point is that they should have to compete with other billing
service providers who do not run mobile networks. This would make sure
that the market will determine prices and not oligopolies of mobile
phone companies.
The internet in general and WLAN in particular bring the chance of a new
start to head this way. We should embrace that chance. Instead of
applying old fashioned wasteful processes to the mobile internet, we
should rather do the opposite and apply the leaner processes of the
internet to the world mobile telephony.
Of course, the mobile phone companies won't like this because it will
mean they will loose the tight grip they presently have on their
subscribers. But loosening up should be considered a sign of a maturing
industry where competition is based on price on the one side of the
spectrum and quality of service on the other side of the spectrum.
Locking in customers by way of nonsensical processes and technology
should be considered cheating and less acceptable.
regards
benjamin
Received on Sun Jun 9 17:47:38 2002