Mantra

Fair global roaming

About

'RoamingMarket.com' is a service for operators that will work by grouping the communications of roaming users coming from different operators into packs of users with the same characteristics. Then these packs will go to an auction with certified local operators that will offer a price to provide mobile services to these users. Since this strategy creates competitive markets where today there aren't and 'RoamingMarket.com' only gets a tiny piece of the granted discount then the prices will go down dramatically, getting closer to local prices offered by local operators in their local SIM cards, or maybe less due to the huge competition generated with these auctions.

What happens when an user wants to do roaming?

What is the process behind the scenes?

FAQ

We have had some questions from people interested, so here is a list of some Frequently Asked Questions. (FAQ)

Q1: You do not explain how to attract the first clients so you will never get the strong position you need to get good deals.
A1: Well, what matters here is that we do not offer anything to final consumers. Our offer is to mobile operators. They are our clients.
Today there are two types of operators when working with roaming. The one that makes 300 deals by its own -usually big operators- and the one -usually small operators, virtual operators- that externalize roaming to another company called roaming provider.
Our target are big operators and roaming providers. We position our company as one of the deals that those types of companies need to make in order to offer roaming in one country.
Thus, we can start specializing in one country, let say Spain, show that we have a great product that makes the roaming cheaper and then move on to other countries.
Oh! deals again, why do operators need something like roaming market?  
We are transparent, we do not do the staff of buy cheap and sell expensive. We are a service. We get a really small commission proportional to the discount we get for the roaming operator compare to original roaming prices. Also, we will sell other services to big operators.
There is no way our service will be more expensive than the crazy prices for roaming. (Notice that roaming prices are 1€- 1 min call while local prices are 0.12€-1 min call, and the difference is bigger for data connections)
For roaming operators is like a service with something priceless: you get a deal that gets updated every day and we optimize it also considering consumer patterns, so if 6 months ago data was no important and today is important because of the iPhone, then the price will be cut because a high priority would be put into data prices in the auctions.
Hu!! but how do you get the initial clients.
We are a product which is healthy in the long term for the roaming market. If they are smart and we have a proven product, they will come with us.

Q2: It is not clear for me what is the price that the user will get because it changes very often.
A2: This project is not oriented to consumer but to operators.
We will analyze past price patterns in a country and with that information we will be able to guarantee a maximum price, so it will be easy for operators to make a decision, but at the end of the day they will get the discount.
Our guess is that operators will put roaming prices based on the maximum price we provide them. Notice that the maximum price will be updated every 6 month -initial estimation- and it will go down.

Q3: It is not clear how to analyze users behaviour to group them before they use roaming.
A3: We do not analyze user behavior individually, but global patterns.
Thus, the auctions are based on an estimation of consumers an they will be defined by a range and a standard deviation.
Examples:
-Blackberry or iPhone achieve mass markets and sms becomes less important in the mobile bills but Internet connection becames very important -> We try to create a group in the auctions that describes that pattern. Let say we estimate we have 10% of that kind of user, then we will create groups with that pattern on a range 7-13%.
-You analyze that from people that do roaming in Spain there is a clear trend in two focused areas, Madrid and Barcelona with an average of 50000 roaming users. Then you can put some auctions with groups for those cities to check if the are operators willing to offer a lower price because normally in big cities antennas are more optimized.
Good thing about the grouping is that you can have a minority group as part of a majority so if the auction of the majority group gets updated then the auction of the minority group gets updated but not viceversa . (Notice that the majority group would not guarantee a number of consumers but a range).


Q4: I do not know where you get the 33% of European Roaming users, because it looks like a lie to me.
A4: Roaming Subscriber Penetration (% of total mobile subscribers roaming at least once per year, 2007) Europe: 33%
Source: Informa Global Mobile Roaming Feb 2007, Convergencia Operator Survey, GSMA.

Q5: They way you explain how to earn money is at least very poor.
A5: Do we explain that? We don't.
Contact us if your interested in our business plan!

Q6: If you get commission for the discount and the prices go down, the discount go down, your commission goes down. Do you have any future?
A6: Yes. If you want more detail about our business plan, please ask.