Mobile Operators teamed up to seize roaming challenges and opportunities at the third IO Plenary

Mobile Operators teamed up to seize roaming challenges and opportunities at the third IO Plenary

Three Plenaries in and IO doesn’t only feel like it’s moving now, but the pace at which the Mobile Operator community is working is clearly accelerating. Since the first Plenary in Dubai in 2021 and second six months ago in Spain, the community knows how things work in the IO world and are really starting to explore the opportunities.

During the 3-day event, over 130 participants representing well over 200 MNOs met face to face in co-located lab sessions and through remote livestreamed participation. From a focus on the African region with the African Roaming Alliance, through to universal challenges in the M2M Roaming Lab, 5G Roaming Lab and VoLTE Roaming Lab.

The IO Executive Board Chair Frédéric Schepens, CEO at MTN GlobalConnect, opened the IO Plenary #03 and welcomed everyone to Dubai. As the IO Community continues to grow, Frédéric inspired the delegates to collaborate to make progress and presented the new initiatives IO is building accordingly with the Roaming Development Goals:

Advisory Board
Vendor Accreditation Programme
Secondments
IO Community Platform

With the support of gold and silver sponsors Nextgen Clearing and BICS, and evening events sponsors MTN GlobalConnect and Amplitiv (formerly Ailleron), delegates had plenty of opportunities to network in different atmospheres while celebrating a major milestone close to the heart of all delegates, the 30^th anniversary of International Roaming. It was noted that IO now has over 100 full MNO members in over 80 countries, with several groups planning on joining in the coming weeks.

On day one, the African Roaming Alliance Lab focused on Roaming Mobility in Africa and outlined challenges such as industry awareness, senior management engagement and vendor dependencies. Smart Africa presented on initiatives to support the One Africa Network Project. The M2M Roaming Lab had the room divided into 4 teams to tackle definition, identification, billing/charging and testing.

Presentations from the M2M sub-groups outcomes opened Day 2 to continue with the 5G Roaming Lab session. The 5GRL announced the appointment of its new Chair, Marco Hofmann from Swisscom, and Deputy Chair, Luc Lamoureux from Reliance JIO. With presentations from Orange and Telefonica, delegates discussed 5G NSA & SA, BCE and SEPP, amongst other topics.

The third day the VoLTE Roaming Lab welcomed Jerome Hardouin from Orange as Deputy Chair, joining Matthew Bisoffi from CKH IOD as the Chair. Having inputs from the delegates and a presentation by Proximus, the main VoLTE Roaming pain points were discussed and two teams were created to work on these. Automation and IR.21 were also matters of discussion.

The IO team is incredibly grateful to the whole IO community for their passion and constant support and cooperation. We hope to meet you again at the next IO Plenary to be held in Europe in 2023.

IO is a non-profit member organisation developed by Mobile Operators for Mobile Operators. With just a few core staff, the organisation tackles roaming specific challenges through accelerator “Lab” style meetings where MNOs share and collaborate on their key challenges.