Tata Communications to offer roaming facilities at Beijing Olympics

Tata Communications today said that it would facilitate prepaid roaming to the 2008 Beijing Olympics for four of the world's largest operators, using its Intelligent CAMEL eXchange (ICX), a service that significantly reduces the time and cost of implementing international prepaid roaming relationships between mobile network operators.

Four of the world's largest mobile network operators will team up with one of China's largest mobile phone operators, to provide mobile roaming services to the Beijing Olympic Games using Tata Communications' wholesale service, that will allow the Chinese carrier to offer inbound prepaid roaming for its roaming partners seamlessly, in time for the Olympic Games starting later this week in Beijing.

Tata Communications Intelligent CAMEL eXchange was chosen in response to the challenges created by the complexity of the network and the need to deliver support to major roaming partners in time for the Olympic Games.

The service allows the Chinese carrier to offer inbound prepaid roaming for its roaming partners in time for the Olympic Games.

Market conditions for roaming in developing markets are highly complex, with challenges such as the use of multiple equipment manufacturers, vast land mass and more than one area, and language barriers. Tata Communications has demonstrated a quick and simple implementation offering with plug and play functionality to allow operators to grow prepaid roaming beginning with Beijing.

Tata Communications' Intelligent CAMEL eXchange allows operators to expand their CAMEL reach further and faster by offering normalization, intelligent signaling as well as remote testing. With real-time normalization of CAMEL messaging on Tata Communications' hosted ICX infrastructure, technical incompatibilities between networks, such as multiple phases of CAMEL, are quickly resolved.

''Operators have a strong appetite these days for extending the reach of their CAMEL connectivity, allowing them both to expand the coverage of their international prepaid roaming service and to reap the advantages of CAMEL-based postpaid roaming. Market response to Intelligent CAMEL eXchange is strong'' said Allan Chan, executive vice president, mobility services for Tata Communications.

''For Intelligent CAMEL eXchange, Beijing is the start of things to come.  Close to twenty mobile network operators worldwide are currently testing ICX and turning to TATA Communications to expand their CAMEL roaming footprint.''

In addition, ICX also supports virtual home environment (VHE) capabilities, thereby increasing call completion rates and improve customer experience. Tata Communications' ICX remote testing and monitoring, troubleshooting and fault resolution is made easier and faster while dependency on technical support resources at mobile network operators is reduced.