iBasis, a KPN company, has launched a new initiative to allow MNOs to connect to hundreds of other operators through a single interconnect and assure LTE roaming and interoperability across multiple vendors. The service, LTE Signaling Exchange (LSX), is set to be deployed first in Europe where iBasis has a stronger presence.
The rollout of 4G LTE mobile broadband has been contentious worldwide. Major mobile broadband service providers seek to cordon off whole segments of the bandwidth spectrum to be used exclusively by their devices. This move makes it very difficult for smaller, younger competitors to gain a foothold in the 4G LTE marketplace.
In the United States, this action has reached the courts and even an ironically named congressional action committee. Abroad, legal action is more difficult and iBasis seeks to take the initiative away from major service providers by acting first.
“We are committed to delivering the highest quality and performance to our customers,” said Juan Ignacio Palacio, Vice President of International Markets for UNE. “LTE enables us to provide a significant improvement in customer experience, and with iBasis’ LSX, we’ll be able to keep that promise as our customers roam, domestically or internationally.”
A number of mobile broadband service providers, including UNE, a renowned telecommunications company in Colombia and The Netherlands, have agreed to connect to iBasis' LSX Sandbox, which offers a trial environment in preparation for launching commercial LTE roaming services.
The LSX Sandbox enables the testing of a range of technical operations, including basic roaming, policy control and charging, Diameter interoperability, signal accounting and MAP-Diameter Interworking.
iBasis is uniquely positioned to be the LTE exchange provider, and their fledgling solution reportedly benefits all major players except the largest mobile broadband service providers, who would see a loss of monopoly in the 4G LTE spectrum.
Edited by
Braden Becker 
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