Facilitates the first multi-operator 4G roaming experience with participating partners from over 15 countries
At this year's Mobile World Congress Telefonica will facilitate the first technological multi-operator 4G LTE roaming experiment to offer high speed data services.
Telefonica Spain will open up its 4G LTE network to a large group of selected operators and technological partners from over 15 countries. Delegates from those operators, which include the UAE, South Korea, Russia, US States, Hong Kong, France, Portugal and Italy, as well as Telefonica operations that already have a commercial LTE service in place (UK, Germany, Brazil, Mexico and Colombia) will, for the first time, work together to provide roaming high speed data services, simultaneously and without fissures.
One of the most important characteristics of 4G for consumers is that it replicates the same service quality level that is usually enjoyed in its respective country of origin. Telefonica´s technical and wholesale teams in Spain have accelerated the deployment of recommendations that are still in the final stages of planning by the GSMA and 3GPP (in whose standardisation groups Telefonica actively participates,) to enable this pilot.
Telefonica will use the LTE Diameter Exchange service offered by Telefonica Global Solutions to provide this experience. It is a service model designed in partnership with Aicent and in line with an Over IPX Services policy. It represents the largest generation of LTE traffic routing (Diameter) signalling, enabling customers to outsource LTE roaming interoperability function while at the same time extending LTE international coverage.
In order to verify availability and quality, several Telefonica units, both local and international, are working with Keynote SIGOS, expert in fraud detection and automatic end to end tests to measure user experience in telecoms networks and services.
During Mobile World Congress next week, additional test probes have been installed at key locations around Barcelona, including at the Mobile World Congress venue itself. This enables Telefonica to simulate global traffic across all the locations, before and during the event, in order to guarantee quality of the service to its customers.
