#inbound roaming

‘Rapid expansion continues to small business customers, building one of the biggest public Wi-Fi networks in the UK’

LONDON, 9 May 2017 - XLN – the UK’s leading provider of phone, broadband, energy and card processing services to more than 100,000 small businesses – has announced that its Wi-Fi service has passed the new milestone of 20,000 public hotspots in the UK.

Rapid expansion of the network has continued since launch in October 2016, driven by customer demand and growing end user adoption.

From April 2017, XLN also announced support for Wi-Fi Roaming across its network. GlobalReach Technology and BSG Wireless have provided the infrastructure to make this rapid expansion possible; with XLN leveraging GlobalReach’s AAA RADIUS and captive portal management platform and BSG Wireless providing its industry-renowned ‘roaming hub’. The technology provides XLN with a carrier-grade, community Wi-Fi network to offer tiered services to business customers and guests.

Andreas Bartels, Head of Wi-Fi, XLN, said: “By leveraging our network scale and partner expertise we’ve gone from nowhere in October last year to running one of the biggest public Wi-Fi networks in the country. Adding dedicated Inbound Roaming features to the service only strengthens the proposition by making it even easier for our customers’ customers to connect.”

Christian Nellemann, Founder and CEO of XLN, said: “It’s always been our ambition to do more than simply save small businesses money. We want to help them grow too – and XLN Wi-Fi is testament to that. It’s levelling the playing field for small businesses, and we’re very proud of that.”

Mark Williamson, CEO, GlobalReach Technology said: “Our congratulations to XLN for supporting UK local businesses and reaching this milestone. It’s great to provide the technology enabling XLN to offer a high quality service and to see it growing fast.  In October we put foundations in place to support multiple enhanced services and business opportunities. We’re pleased our platform has supported the first inbound roaming enhancement and look forward to more in the future.”

“Life is difficult,” according M. Scott Peck, the author of the bestselling book, “The Road Less Travelled,” and surely everyone would agree to this statement of Scott Peck. No one in this lifetime is not beset with great and small problems, but most of us justify the difficulties of life and assuage their impacts on our lives by simply convincing ourselves that all these difficulties are simply challenges, meant to make us strong. Yet, going back to what Scott Peck said about the difficulty of life, it is easy to see how life has greatly become difficult for contemporary human beings by simply looking at the tons of bills that each of us are bound to pay every month. These tons of bills are brought about by the increasing number of subscriptions that modern men have subscribed to.

Nowadays, when you open the mailbox or turn on your mobile phone, you’ll readily see your electric bills, water bills, cable bills, internet bills, and other subscription bills; and if you are a veritable wanderlust, you would surely see on your emails your mobile subscription bills fraught with international roaming charges, both inbound roaming charges and outbound roaming charges. You simply can’t help but pay all these bills, otherwise you would lose your subscriptions. Hence, if you are not careful enough in the use of your mobile phones when you are abroad, you may end up having a bill shock.

How to Zero in on the Right Mobile Service Provider?

If you are an impulsive subscriber, you would certainly end up with a lot of subscriptions that would really not be beneficial to you a lot and would just burying you under the rubbles of useless bills. Hence, you got to stay witty and wise when it comes to the choosing of your subscriptions. You should always do your research beforehand before you even subscribe to any service provider. You should also list down some important questions that could help you zero in on the right mobile service provider.

The very first question that you should ask yourself before choosing a plan is: “What types or kinds of coverage will you be needing?” This question also entails the subsequent question of where you are going to use your phone. Another basic question that you have to ask yourself is: “How often would you use your phone and how many minutes do you usually use per month?” The answer to these questions can help you figure out which plan you need to have and subscribe to. Third, you need to ask yourself about the necessary amount or budget that you are willing to shell out or spend for your mobile plan. Hence, your plan should be commensurate with your capacity to pay it. Lastly, you should also ask yourself this basic question: “Which types of features you would like to be included in your plan.”

The most ordinary happenings in life are sometimes taken for granted. If you look, for example, at the moon and the sun that continuously shine and have been faithful in shining throughout the ages, you will readily realize that—since their rising and fading into the horizon is a usual event of the day—you seldom appreciate their faithful rising and setting. Similarly, at present, it has become a common fact that there are millions of machine SIM cards that are trying to connect and communicate with each other worldwide. Mobile connections likewise have become common and ordinary that you sometimes no longer marvel at how SIMs connect with each other. But if you lose connection, for example, because you have gone beyond the coverage of your network, you would begin to feel fidgety and become disturbed by your loss of SIM connections. This loss of connection is more troublesome if you loss connection while in a foreign country.

The Internet of Things and Machine-to-Machine Technologies

Connectivity will be the name of the game in the near future. The introduction of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technologies, are quickly making the world interconnected. Things and devices are becoming smart because they are equipped with powerful microprocessors that are capable of connecting and processing data at tremendous speed. Likewise, it is projected that by the year 2020, there will be around 30 billion smart devices around the world, and each of these devices will be capable of smartly communicating with each other. Moreover, every year, there will be around one billion people who will be moving and travelling around the world with their smart mobile devices. These people will surely need to get connected with their relatives and friends back home, and they will certainly need international roaming capability. For this reason, mobile service providers will surely be hard-pressed to improve their services. Better Roaming Services will definitely be in great demands as many people go international.

The Dilemma of Mobile Service Providers

This growing number of international travelers poses a dilemma to mobile service providers. On the one hand, these frequently traveling people will surely demand that their mobile service providers provide them with awesome services similar to the services they experience when they are at home. On the other hand, the different mobile service providers will surely see this fact about the increase in the number of people internationally as a great challenge.

If mobile service providers got great management, they will definitely see this fact as an opportunity to expand and enhance their services. They can surely provide roaming value added services (VAS). Roaming VAS will surely satisfy and at the same time entice their subscribers to continue their subscriptions to their data plans.

As said earlier, great business managements will see opportunities in great and challenging situations. Similarly, in the case of mobile service providers, the growing number of subscribers who will be needing better roaming services will surely continue to increase, and this situation can be adeptly turned into great opportunities by mobile service providers. Lastly, mobile service providers can avail of the services of companies that specialize in innovating and leveraging the services of mobile service providers. These enabling companies can help mobile service providers to see how they can maximize and optimize their existing platforms to create more revenues in the future.

One of the most dreaded fears or phobias that some people experience is that of mazeophobia. Mazeophobia is the inordinate fear of being lost in a foreign or unfamiliar place. This debilitating phobia is usually characterized by a paralyzing sensation that usually prevents a person from going to new places because of the gnawing fear of losing one's way. Hence, people with this type of phobia often becomes confined to their own homes and incapable of traveling alone to unfamiliar places and even to foreign countries. Well, indeed such phobia is a crippling phobia that can prevent a person from achieving greater things. Yet, there is also the normal fear of not being able to communicate with loved ones and friends during a sojourn to another country or place. Although not a phobia, any person can dread the experience of being unable to communicate because one’s mobile phone fails to make a call. This predicament is equally dreadful for nobody wants to feel “incommunicado” in a foreign land. The prospect of hearing the voices or seeing loved ones in a video call can be greatly soothing and reassuring to a person who finds himself or herself alienated in a foreign land.  

What is International Roaming?

In the recent decades, we have seen the introductions of international roaming packages provided by network telecom service providers. This package consists of roaming mobile feature that is capable of enabling people to communicate and transfer data even if a person is already beyond the specific geographical coverage of his/her telecom service provider. The reason for this package is very obvious: each telecom service provider has only a particular zone or area wherein its transmission lines can be very effective. Outside of these coverage area, the mobile devices of their customers and subscribers can no longer make a call or access internet. Hence, there is a need for an international roaming package to enable subscribers who have gone out the coverage area of their network to make phone calls and to relay data using their mobile phones. Roaming data should be turned on for a subscriber to make phone calls.

Various telecom service providers in some areas of the world, like in Euro zone, have agreed that there will be no charges within the zone and there will no longer be any additional roaming charges if one moves from one country of EU to another country of EU. However, there are areas around the world wherein if you go out of a particular country and travel to an adjacent country, you will be charged with additional roaming fees. Hence, in areas like this, you need to turn off the roaming feature of your mobile phone to avoid extra charges on your account. You should also familiarize yourself with the different Value Added Services (VAS) offered by your service provider. Roaming VAS are indeed valuable to ensure that the services provided by the service providers are truly beneficial, and that the customers are satisfied with their services. Lastly, data roaming is not possible without the technological advancements like those of the Internet of Things and Machine to Machine protocols.