Wi-Fi carrier roaming does produce some additional revenues for service providers but, as Mark Carter, the Chief Product Officer at GlobalReach Technology observes, its primary benefit is in the avoidance and reduction of subscriber churn. SPs can leverage Wi-Fi carrier roaming to extend service platforms by working with other operators to add value in other territories and and other vertical markets. This can boost brand loyalty and, as roaming barriers for LTE come down, can also help in the development of a more heterogeneous network view. Wi-Fi has a strong card to play in that game by providing service providers with lower cost transport services. 

With the new network, SDN, NFV, the cloud and 5G what is needed is a management platform for the user experience and via it's authentication platform, GlobalReach helps SPs to tailor the authorisation they wish their customers to use. For example, not just via a password or Google or Facebook identity but extending it to loyalty programme overlaps which drive both brand capability and loyalty. As Mark Carter says, for there is an increasing service requirement to move away from apps. These days things need to be part of the bearer network and work seamlessly because what customers care about is the user experience, the content and the speed of load of that content. They don't need to appreciate the technology underpinning their experience, and why should they?

Filmed at Wireless Global Congress, London 2018