Mobile phone companies still rely on complex accounting processes to settle billions of dollars in international roaming charges every year. Tata Communications, part of the Tata Group conglomerate in India, and Zain Omantel International (ZOI) in Oman want to modernize that system globally using AI and blockchain.
The companies signed a memorandum of understanding to explore building a platform that would automate many of the business processes behind international roaming, including managing carrier agreements, reconciling usage records, settling payments and resolving billing disputes.
International roaming lets mobile subscribers make calls, send texts and use data while traveling abroad by connecting to another carrier’s network. Behind the scenes, the home carrier must reimburse the foreign carrier for providing that service, creating a web of financial transactions among hundreds of telecom operators worldwide.
Today, those payments often require each company to maintain separate records and manually compare usage data before invoices can be settled. Tata Communications and ZOI say their proposed platform would instead use AI to automate much of the work while blockchain would provide a shared, tamper-resistant record that both companies can trust.
The companies said the project remains in the exploratory stage. The memorandum of understanding does not announce a commercial product but outlines plans to evaluate the technology together.
ZOI’s roaming network spans nearly 700 mobile networks across more than 200 countries and territories and carries more than 10 billion international voice minutes annually. Tata Communications works with more than 600 mobile network operators, connecting roughly four out of five mobile subscribers worldwide.