January 2014
| Business World Magazine | 135
issued a formal request for proposal for
organizations interested in hosting the
Data Access Hub, and TNS was selected
by the steering committee, made up of
carrier members of various sizes and ge-
ographies.
The Hub will provide carriers a “one-
stop shopping” opportunity for roaming,
and better still - connectivity. Through
the Hub, carriers will be able to sign one
agreement and connect immediately to all
other participating operators’ networks.
And in the 4G world, if you’re a small car-
rier, you have to show your customers that
you have a national footprint and that you
can provide service wherever they travel
in the United States. The Hub will provide
this capability to carriers. The goal is to
always have access to one of the strongest
networks and one of the strongest signals
and the best service anywhere in the U.S.
where our members have a footprint.
The idea is to create an ecosystem where
small carriers and the largest two small
Tier 1 carriers, Sprint and T-Mobile, can
cooperatively work together to provide
coverage through the U.S. and then also
become an international destination. So
if you’re a Vodaphone or an Orange cus-
tomer in Europe, you can come here with
agreements through our Hub and have ac-
cess to networks in the U.S. that provide
you top-quality service. These are capa-
bilities that smaller carriers would never
have access to unless they had a direct re-
lationship with one of the largest two car-
riers. What we’re trying to do is give our
smaller carriers choices, and as such we
also give the consumer multiple choices.
The Hub is one program the BIG has
created. Another program the BIG de-
signed is a Wi-Fi Offload Solution, in
partnership with Boingo. To help carriers
meet this growing demand and strain on
their networks, Boingo is offering white-
labeled Wi-Fi solutions to CCA carriers
so their customers can connect to Bo-
ingo’s global footprint with one single ac-
count. This program will allow carrier a
cost-effective option to help competitive
carriers manage capacity constraints and
better control data roaming costs.
CCA’s BIG is working on a number of
different initiatives that will benefit our
carriers, and ultimately consumers. While
advocacy is our primary focus, these pro-
grams complement our advocacy work,
and our members know that CCA is doing
everything we can to help ensure they can
compete and thrive in the industry.
