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Forecast: Wholesale roaming revenue to double by 2028

January 14, 2025

A study from Juniper Research, experts in telecommunications markets, has found that global revenue from wholesale roaming will grow from $9 billion (€8.7bn) in 2024 to $20 billion by 2028.

Juniper Research predicts that the increasing deployment of 5G standalone (SA) technology, which supports the growing need for real-time monitoring of roaming connections and activity, will be a key driver of this substantial growth over the next four years.

5G SA Deployments to Accelerate Roaming Growth…

The Global Mobile Roaming Market 2025-2029 report forecasts that roaming revenue from IoT connections will near $2 billion globally by 2028, accounting for 10 per cent of the global wholesale roaming market. For operators to fully maximise this revenue, real-time monitoring solutions that can efficiently identify roaming connections for the visited network in real-time are key to maximising the monetisation of roaming.

The report found that network slicing in 5G SA networks will enable operators to gain greater visibility into roaming connections. Network slicing enables operators to partition areas of a public telecommunications network for specific use cases or enterprise clients. This will enable IoT connections to be closely monitored when roaming, thus reducing the potential revenue leakage for the operator.

… But Consumer Devices to Remain Dominant Revenue Source

However, the report found that roaming consumer devices will remain the prevailing source of operators’ wholesale roaming revenue.

Research author, Georgia Allen, commented: “Investment into network slicing and 5G SA roaming must coincide with operators’ deployments of Billing and Charging Evolution (BCE), which will protect operators from revenue leakage across all roaming connections and ensure effective monetisation of roaming operations.”

Categories: 5G, Articles, IoT, Markets, MNO, Mobile, Research

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