BICS launches SMART Webvision, a Quality Monitoring, Tracing and Business Intelligence tool for 2G, 3G and 4G Roaming

Brussels – Belgium, 14 August 2013, BICS, the strategic international wholesale partner to over 400 mobile operators worldwide, is launching SMART Webvision, a solution for the monitoring, tracking,  tracing and reporting of Roaming Traffic on SS7 Signalling.  In addition it will support LTE Diameter, LTE Data and GPRS Roaming Exchange network (GRX) technologies.

The SMART Webvision solution is an easy-to-use roaming, monitoring, tracking, tracing and business intelligence tool. It allows MNOs, MVNOs and roaming service providers to make intelligent business decisions based on analysis of subscriber behaviour, usage trends and network performance. The acronym SMART stands for Subscriber Management and Advanced Reporting Tool, the analytics it produces enables operators to modify their data roaming service proposition and develop new tariffs to counteract pricing caps and drive additional revenues from international roaming. The solution also provides information to support targeted marketing and promotion campaigns.

BICS is launching a series of modules designed to monitor, measure, track, trace and analyse operator roaming traffic. This will allow operators to optimise the roaming experience and boost revenues from roaming over 2G/3G/4G. This service will address some of the crucial concerns operators have about roaming. It can assess a range of different issues, identifying and tracking how much roaming traffic is currently on the network, which services subscribers are using and their location. From an infrastructure perspective it can identify if the network is experiencing any SS7/LTE/GRX interconnection problems and the quality of service delivered to each end user. From a revenue management and service assurance perspective it can identify revenue leakage and if the capacity roadmap is aligned with forecasts. 

Mikaël Schachne, VP Mobile Data Business at BICS, said: “Mobile data roaming revenues will grow significantly over the next five years, mainly driven by an increasing usage of data services by subscribers travelling abroad. Operators are acutely aware of this evolution and are looking at different ways to monitor inbound and outbound roaming traffic on different technologies and levels. Ultimately they want to guarantee the quality of the user roaming experience, anticipate traffic changes and define the right roaming strategy. Roaming price caps and new legislation that will open up the market to specialist roaming providers has created a need for operators to introduce tiered service offerings with different pricing options.”

He added: “SMART will give operators a 360° view on their roaming business enabling them to fine-tune their roaming strategy. Based on figures they can improve the quality of the roaming experience, but also add an entirely new dimension to data roaming with the availability of new pricing options dependent on speed, for example. Operators can begin to offer a range of standard and premium services to cater for different subscriber needs for both business customers and consumers. Intelligence provided by SMART will enable operators to maintain quality and speed for premium customers in an area where there is limited bandwidth.”

SMART Webvision is composed out of different modules for SS7 Signalling, LTE Diameter Signalling, IP Data on GRX and IPX transport that can be activated separately on three levels: monitoring functionalities, track and trace capabilities and business intelligence.

SMART will provide mobile operators with:

•           Visibility on network performance to guarantee service levels

•           Monitoring and tracking of subscribers for problem identification and resolution in real time

•           Identifying consumer preferences to launch targeted marketing campaigns

•           Analysis of consumer trends to support expansion plans

The tool is unique as the information is provided in near real-time through seamless web access. It gives a view per operator or, in the case of a group of operators, an aggregated view of roaming traffic for the entire group. Additional features such as the ‘time zones conversion support’ provide operators with greater clarity and accuracy in terms of data analysis.