TNS Marks Major Milestone for Feature-rich Telco Hub

Transaction Network Services (TNS) is celebrating the 5^th anniversary of the TNS Data Services Hub, which now has 29 US operators as members and a growing number of international carriers and operator groups. Last month, TNS handled over 5 billion LTE diameter signaling messages across its network and more than 30 billion in the last year.

The TNS Data Services Hub provides a technical and business framework for simplifying LTE, as well as other next-generation data connectivity, interoperability or roaming needs among participating operators.

Earlier this year, TNS launched six critical roaming risk mitigation capabilities, including data capping, usage notifications, automated roamer greetings, and data throttling. In addition, the advanced 4G ecosystem has recently been boosted with a wealth of new features and is now providing live VoLTE roaming services to multiple operators across the US.

Bill Versen, Chief Product Officer at TNS, said: “We’re delighted that the TNS Data Services Hub has reached its 5^thbirthday in such a strong position. We designed this ecosystem to provide operators with scale and overcome interoperability issues across multiple vendor variants and protocols and have continued to invest in and expand its capabilities. We pride ourselves in being a market leader.”

David Kaemmer, Vice President of Sales at TNS’ Wholesale Telecoms business, said: “Customers see us as a pioneer, having been one of the first to launch testing and support for LTE data roaming, multi- and bi-lateral roaming, and, more recently, VoLTE roaming. We drive technological innovation and will continue to make essential new features available to our customers.”

TNS is currently piloting data optimization services that promise to help operators take control of their data consumption costs, which have been escalating since the reintroduction of unlimited data plans.

Mr. Kaemmer said: “One operator pain point we have identified is the danger presented by uncontrollable wholesale data roaming costs. Our new Data Optimization and Hub Break Out service will help operators to address this issue by limiting these costs, while ensuring subscriber roaming demands are still met.”

Mr. Versen adds: “We have also expanded our support of VoLTE E911 with Emergency Break Out (EBO) call routing services to enable local access to the nearest PSAP, which helps operators meet regulatory requirements in a more streamlined and cost-effective manner. TNS fully inter-operates with notable E911 providers, thus supporting VoLTE E911 calls for roamers and the operators’ own subscribers alike. TNS VoLTE E911 Emergency Break Out identifies and routes critical VoLTE 911 traffic more efficiently than other market offerings as we account for TDM to IP evolution.”

The CCA LTE Roaming Hub, powered by TNS, is also part of the TNS Data Services Hub and now encompasses 65 million subscribers across 25 countries.

Mr. Kaemmer said: “We’ve continued to regularly sign new members to the CCA LTE Roaming Hub and have a number of new agreements being finalized over the summer. We expect that this year our hub will cover more than half of the top 40 international destinations of US travellers, which accounts for the majority of the international roaming traffic of our members.”

From small rural operators in the US to the largest multi-national carriers, TNS has over 500 operator customers and addresses the full needs of wireless and wireline operators in the US and globally. TNS’ networks have been specifically designed and configured for the transmission of transaction-related time sensitive data and support a variety of widely accepted communications protocols.

Since it was founded in 1990, TNS has grown to provide services in more than 60 countries across the Americas, Europe and the Asia Pacific region, and offers 24x7x365 support via its Network Operating Centers in the US, UK and Australia.