Unaffordable Roaming

Thursday, June 16th, 2011 John Gallagher, Sr. Public Relations Manager

A New York Times editorial today hit on the sensitive subject of roaming. As our CEO has stated many times, “devices are cheap; it’s the networks that are expensive.” The editorial cites an OECD report (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) that was published late in 2010 discussing the expensive charges that are generally incurred for international mobile data roaming.

The most obvious issue for an enterprise is that the cost of mobility for workers can be incredibly expensive if there is no enterprise mobility strategy to deal with the roaming issue effectively.

Not only are these costs often significant, they are also very hard to account for within enterprises. Instead of falling within the IT budget, mobility costs are often hidden within expense claims — the mobility ‘black budget.’ Not only does this make it incredibly difficult for enterprises to understand their mobility costs, it also means they have very little insight into mobile working patterns and how they can best support their users going forwards. They will fall into the trap of expensive solutions for problems that are not well understood.

When I travel in Europe, my US carrier charges $20 per MB for data roaming. However, it has the desired effect of ensuring that I turn off data roaming and look for other solutions to connect and communicate. It also has the desired effect of creating a loathsome dislike for my carrier (I truly can’t wait to change carriers, once my contract expires.)

But with the second wave of Wi-Fi, I’ve also turned to using my Nimbuzz or GoogleVoice VoIP clients over Wi-Fi to talk while I’m abroad. It’s highly worth the $10 pre-payment for each one of these accounts. Luckily I also have iPass as well to overcome the data roaming issue too. But the downside for my mobile operator is that they don’t have the ability to capture the revenue when I roam, so I spend that money elsewhere. My operators also destroy any loyalty that I might have to their service offering.

The NYT editorial states: “American wireless customers roaming in other industrial nations pay about $8 to $22 per megabyte, on average. In Europe, where interconnection rates are capped, roaming is still expensive but substantially cheaper. French and British roamers pay less than $7.”

However, while I may balk at mobile operators international roaming prices I understand that it’s incredibly difficult for operators to offer deep discounts now – especially with a global bandwidth shortage.

But that’s all the more reason for telecom carriers to get into the Wi-Fi business so they can offer customers alternative options while roaming and also deal with the global bandwidth shortage.

Wi-Fi makes a lot of sense for telecom operators especially as it resolves numerous issues for their customers and their business. A few telecom operators have already announced initiatives to offer users a Wi-Fi solution when they roam too such as SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom too.

The iPass Q1 Mobile Workforce Report illustrated that 72 percent of mobile workers know how much data they consume in a month and importantly 70 percent would go on a data diet if cost became a consideration for data coverage. But it’s also the other 30 percent who have no insight into their use and costs that can create an IT nightmare especially when employers are footing the bill.

Roaming doesn’t need to be expensive especially when you have an iPass account and can take advantage of over half a million hotspots worldwide. But as more and more devices come online and the demand for connectivity keeps rising, enterprises could be caught unaware if they do not take proactive measures with their enterprise mobility strategy.

So if North American mobile operators charged less for international mobile roaming it’s very likely that more of their customers would use their service when they travel abroad and importantly stay loyal to their carrier. Especially when you consider that one-third of Europeans data roam when they travel internationally – and no doubt more will as prices may drop even further with pending EU regulations.

Tags: cost management, hotspot, internet access, mobile device, mobile employee, roaming, wi-fi access