Revenues generated from mobile data roaming are anticipated to reach $42bn by 2018, representing nearly half of the global mobile roaming revenue, a new report revealed.
According to Juniper Research’s Mobile Roaming: Regulations, Opportunities & In-flight Strategies 2014-2018 report, the revenues will mainly be fuelled by rise in data usage, as operator migration towards 4G will provoke users to exploit faster broadband networks, while drop in roaming charges would prompt more frequent and heavier usage.
The report also added that the explosion of roaming data usage will mainly be driven by increasing LTE deployments and its exponential growth in all markets across the globe.
Juniper Research senior analyst Nitin Bhas said that operators also need to sort out the right economics to encourage more usage at a value to the end users in order to avoid revenue erosion.
"They need to also provide services that are both relevant and cost effective to LTE roamers," Bhas said.
The report also suggests that successful business models towards end-users and between operators have to be implemented in a bid to achieve complete potential of LTE roaming.
The European Parliament’s approval on EU’s proposal to end roaming charges would extensively impact on roaming revenue levels, which would lead to over 20% drop in European voice, SMS and data revenues in 2016.
