Global Wholesale Roaming Revenue to Double by 2028

A new study from Juniper Research has found that global revenue from wholesale roaming will grow from $9 billion in 2024 to $20 billion by 2028. It predicts that the increasing deployment of 5G standalone 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.

The report forecasts that roaming revenue from IoT connections will be near $2 billion globally by 2028, accounting for 10% of the global wholesale roaming market. For operators to fully maximize this revenue, real-time monitoring solutions that can efficiently identify roaming connections for the visited network in real-time are key to maximizing the monetization of roaming.

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.

However, the report found that roaming consumer devices will remain the prevailing source of operators’ wholesale roaming revenue. “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 monetization of roaming operations,” remarked research author Georgia Allen.