Mobile phone roaming has finally become history, what about IoT roaming?

As early as this year's "Two Sessions", the "Government Work Report" proposed to cancel data roaming fees. Subsequently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the three major operators set a timetable and announced that data "roaming fees" would be canceled on July 1. From yesterday, mobile data "roaming fees" will become history. However, IoT users have always had no problem paying roaming fees regardless of where they apply for IoT cards. Of course, these so-called roaming fees mainly involve roaming between different regions within the same operator, while "inter-network roaming" between different operators still needs to bear the relevant fees. Inter-network roaming for IoT networks has also begun to receive attention, not only NB-IoT based on licensed spectrum, but also operator-level networks based on unlicensed spectrum are constantly promoting inter-network roaming.

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1. Inter-network roaming is on the agenda of IoT network operators

What is "inter-network roaming"? It means that a SIM card signed with a certain operator can also be used on the network of another operator without changing the number. The inter-network roaming we are most familiar with is more concentrated in international roaming services, and people who often go abroad are more familiar with it. Every user who has opened an international roaming service will switch his phone to the local contracted operator network when he goes abroad and use the local operator's network services. Of course, behind this is the need for different operators to have an open authentication agreement on user contract data and to carry out a series of docking work.

Roaming between different domestic operators has not yet been commercialized. Previously, a Notice on the Pilot Program of Inter-network Roaming of Mobile Communication Networks (Draft for Comments) was circulated in the industry, but it has not been implemented on a large scale. Last year, Wang Xiaochu, Chairman of China Unicom, mentioned at the shareholders' meeting that China Unicom plans to roam in some remote areas with the help of China Mobile and other networks, and try to use small funds to develop big businesses and improve capital utilization. Of course, China Unicom's wishful thinking alone cannot be implemented, and it also involves the game of interests in business cooperation, billing, settlement, etc. with China Mobile. In general, the difficulty of promoting inter-network roaming between domestic operators is much higher than that of cross-border operators.

Internet of Things network roaming has also begun to be put on the agenda of operators. Not only is roaming based on the licensed spectrum NB-IoT network, but IoT network operators based on unlicensed spectrum technology are also actively promoting roaming.

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Recently, well-known operators Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom successfully completed the world's first NB-IoT international roaming trial in Europe. In this trial, Deutsche Telekom's global SIM card used Vodafone Spain's NB-IoT network to connect, and Vodafone's global SIM card used T-Mobile Austria's NB-IoT network and modules to connect. These trials will also provide consistent deployment level guidance for other operators. In the view of GSMA, the realization of NB-IoT network roaming is crucial for manufacturers and applications with global equipment deployment. It is believed that with the efforts of GSMA and global mainstream operators, NB-IoT roaming will be promoted globally in the future.

As a star company in low-power wide-area networks, Sigfox provides roaming in deployments in countries around the world. In fact, the networks in many countries are deployed by Sigfox, which is not strictly speaking roaming on other networks, but more like roaming between the own networks of global operators such as Vodafone in more than 20 countries.

The LoRa camp is also very active in cross-network roaming. In the LoRaWAN Backend Interfaces specification released by the LoRa Alliance in October last year, switching roaming is supported, which can realize the transfer of control of terminal devices from one LoRaWAN network to another. Last year, France's Bouygues Telecom and a Russian LoRaWAN operator conducted roaming tests. During this year's MWC in Barcelona, ​​the two major operators, Orange in France and KPN in the Netherlands, successfully implemented the world's largest cross-border roaming off-site test of the LoRaWAN network. LoRa platform supplier Actility has also recently jointly released the LoRaWAN international roaming platform ThingPark Exchange with several operators. Different LoRaWAN network operators can use this platform to quickly realize cross-network roaming.

2. Questions about IoT roaming

With the deployment of low-power wide-area networks such as NB-IoT, LoRa, and Sigfox, there have been constant voices of support and doubt. In particular, there are some obvious doubts about the roaming of these IoT networks. The specific analysis mainly includes:

Question 1: How many businesses and demands are there?

In the eyes of many people, the IoT applications that have been or will be commercialized on a large scale have little demand for roaming on different networks, and only a small amount of cross-border business. For example, the large-scale application areas that NB-IoT and LoRa are focusing on are smart meters, smart fire protection, water meters, gas meters, smoke alarms and other equipment, which are basically in fixed places. Even shared bicycles and wearable devices with a certain degree of mobility are limited to deployment in one city or within the country for a long time. Domestic operators generally have achieved full network coverage of NB-IoT networks, and NB-IoT terminals can achieve roaming switching between different regions in China. Operators will not open cross-network roaming services in China. In the end, cross-network roaming is only for a very small amount of cross-border business needs.

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Logistics equipment, anti-theft equipment, and applications deployed in multiple countries require IoT network roaming capabilities. At this stage, the demand for inter-network roaming is indeed very small, and operators need to negotiate and sign inter-network roaming agreements with operators around the world for these small businesses.

Question 2: Cost-benefit issue

For NB-IoT, since the network is deployed by mainstream operators around the world, these operators have already carried out cross-network roaming cooperation on 2G/3G/4G cellular networks, and the cross-network roaming work of the newly added NB-IoT and future eMTC networks is relatively low in cost. However, for LoRaWAN network operators, in addition to traditional telecom operators, there are also a large number of new operator groups, and the communication cost of cross-network roaming between them is relatively high.

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On the other hand, the average revenue of LoRaWAN connection is not high. This is a field that requires large-scale connections to realize revenue. Roaming on different networks means that the meager revenue of each connection needs to be shared among operators. In addition, due to the differences in the spectrum used in different regions, to achieve roaming on different networks, the equipment also needs multi-frequency module support, which adds some costs. As mentioned in the first question, when the demand is small, the cost-benefit issue is more prominent.

Question 3: Unlicensed spectrum network standardization issues make roaming difficult to implement

Although the LoRa Alliance has a unified LoRaWAN specification, and many operators also use this specification for network deployment, a large number of companies have modified the LoRaWAN specification to form their own standard network deployment specifications, which makes roaming between operators more difficult to implement. Orange and KPN mentioned above both use standardized LoRaWAN specifications to deploy nationwide networks, so roaming can be quickly achieved between them. However, a large number of industry-level, enterprise-level, and even city-level LoRa networks do not use the standard LoRaWAN specification. For industry-level and enterprise-level networks, there are more local business needs and not much demand for roaming. For city-level networks, there is indeed a certain demand for cross-city business. Non-LoRaWAN specifications may cause these users with cross-city mobile needs to turn to NB-IoT networks.

Although inter-network roaming charges have become history, roaming has not stopped, especially the inter-network roaming of the IoT has just begun. With the commercial development of eSIM and IoT software platforms, the inter-network roaming of the IoT may also undergo new changes. Of course, inter-network roaming is only a means. The vision of IoT network operators is to provide the most convenient connection for terminals.