Syahrial Ali's Blog

When you travel abroad, you will receive a welcoming message in the destination port from another operator. This message will tell you that you can use your mobile phone in this country as if you are in your own country. You are currently in other country and the operator you use has a cooperation agreement with the local operator in the destination country. You are in international roaming condition.

The same principal can also be applied within the same country. Some operators have better coverage than some others, or some operators have coverage in one or more areas, while some others have coverage in that region but they don’t have in another region. To cover all regions, an operator shall need to make a domestic roaming agreement with other operators.

Up until October 2009, almost 15 years since GSM technology was launched in Indonesia, no cellular operator was interested in domestic roaming. Big operators seem reluctant to provide domestic roaming to its competitor. This is one reason why new entry in cellular industry get difficulties to attract more customer in Indonesia. New entry operators must built their own network to serve customers.

However on Nov 16th 2009, there is a breakthrough in cellular communication in Indonesia when XL agreed to provide national roaming for Axis. Hence Axis’s customer can make a communication in all over Indonesia even though Axis doe have network in that area.

Domestic roaming is beneficial for both parties. The main benefit goes to tenant (Axis), however XL also receives additional revenue from this service. Domestic roaming is enable new entry to attract many customers as it can serve wider coverage.

Special respect shall be given to XL management who opens up an healthy competition with their competitors. Congratulation.

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