On Monday, October 15, 2001, at 09:03 , Maria Pienaar wrote:
> Benjamin
>
> I have been following the discussion with quite a lot of interest.
> Where can
> I find out more about the Zebra roaming protocol? Are you referring to
> the
> Zebra routing protocol for IPv6 or something completely different?
Unrelated to IPv6 Zebra. Just coincidence.
Anyway, I understand that Mika would like us to keep this subject if not
offlist, then at least brief, because it is considered off-topic.
Therefore, I will respond in detail offlist - and only give a summary
here after which I encourage anybody to email me directly. Apologies to
anyone else.
There is an online presentation at http://www.cellular-roaming.com. The
content is still under construction, but sometimes work in progress is
accessible through a backdoor at http//zebra.dnsalias.com ;-)
Further, I have a PowerPoint presentation which has good overall
information, both business and technology wise. I am happy to email this
to anyone interested but it is fairly large (2MB+). Just email me.
ZEBRA is a new roaming model - more than just a protocol.
In order to comprehend this, it helps to not think in terms of the
existing roaming model, i.e. home network carries risk, charges and
shares revenue with visited network etc. All that is *not* applicable.
Any services provided by the visited network are charged for by the
visited network and the risk is managed by the visited network. There is
no settlement and the home network is not involved.
Any services provided by the home network (unified messaging or
forwarding) are charged by the home network and the risk is managed by
the home network. There is no settlement and the visited network is not
involved.
The best way to think of it in functional terms is probably as an
Over-the-air-visitor-account-provisioning-facility which is dynamically
linked to one or more unified messaging service(s) back home.
The best way to think of it in business terms is probably as economy
class roaming. It coexists with all the other models.
The reason why GPRS roaming becomes a non-issue is because a ZEBRA user
won't actually roam in the traditional sense, he is a temporary local
user and as such will be able to use GPRS like any other local user,
provided the visited network offers GPRS. A kind of GPRS pseudo roaming.
Various issues that might come to mind have been addressed and the
technology has been evaluated and certified for feasibility and GSM
compliance by the Telecommunications Institute of the University of
South Australia in Adelaide. Various European consortia also have looked
at this and confirmed feasibility.
The main issue with ZEBRA doesn't appear to be neither technical nor
political, but practical or logistical. The developing company is a
small startup in Australia while the market for this is predominantly in
Europe. The main challenge is to fund and build a roaming service centre
(RSC), a kind of hub to which operators connect. Telcos are interested
to fund this but the fear is that any consortium taking the lead or
ending up with a majority shareholding might eventually be an obstacle
for others to sign up.
Models being discussed right now are a) a cooperative where all
connecting operators have a share or b) an independent service centre
entity with a charter to keep the service open to anybody. Credit card
companies appear to be interested in participating in the latter.
Of course, until this is up and running, there will always be some folks
who say it can't work and won't work, but so far the echo has been
rather positive. We shall see.
regards
benjamin
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Received on Mon Oct 15 16:18:18 2001