GENEVA-The GSM Association announced it plans to establish a roaming forum to address roaming issues among wireless protocols. Approval of the World Roaming Forum will be discussed at a GSM Association meeting in Montreal next week, said Michael Stocks, chairman of the association, at Telecom ’99.
During August, more than 400 million roaming calls were handled by Global System for Mobile communications network operators, said the group. Stocks said the GSM Association, representing 390 GSM mobile carriers in 141 countries, is uniquely suited to the task.
“Already our standard has shown it is flexible enough to be integrated with the satellite operators, all of whom have joined our association-as indeed have the emerging third-generation network operators,” Stocks said. “Now I feel it is important that we examine ways of working with other existing standards for the benefit of mobile phone users everywhere.”
Key factors in the development of the World Roaming Forum include the availability of dual-mode and multimode handsets, allowing the possibility of inter-technology roaming, and customer demand for global wireless coverage.
Other technology groups also have shown an interest in global roaming, and the GSM Association is in discussions with the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium regarding the issue, said Stocks.
The association also approved Transferred Accounting Procedure 3 billing software, which is important for roaming. Early next year, the GSM association plans to implement a certification forum that will test terminal interoperability, he added.
“Obviously, on behalf of our members, the main thing we wish to promote is GSM roaming,” said Stocks. “But we must also look at the benefits of inter-standard roaming.
“For example, a GSM operator in the U.S.A. who could offer, on a single handset, worldwide GSM roaming at a low cost, coupled with inter-standard roaming in the U.S.A., might find he has significantly increased his marketing edge.”
The association said current GSM customers number 205 million, compared with 12.5 million GSM subscribers four years ago. The group predicts between 700 million and 1 billion GSM customers worldwide by 2005. The Asia-Pacific region is the fastest-growing region with 53.5 million current GSM subscribers. Africa currently has 5 million GSM customers, a 75-percent increase since the end of 1998.
