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There is an interesting discussion on USSD Experts about Global USSD Exchange. Here is an excerpt for those who are not yet in the Group:
Ivan Komarov
twitter.com/ivankomarov
Featured discussion
Global USSD traffic exchange
Since USSD inter-carrier traffic is not regulated, Eyeline wants to initiate a process to civilize traffic exchange among carriers alike SMS traffic. How can we achieve this, what are your ideas? Or is this not needed?
Posted 7 days ago
Comments (7)
1. Tjaart van der Walt
CEO/Owner at TruTeq Wireless
Hi Ivan
We’d we interested.
Posted 6 days ago
2. Shaun Campbell
Director, Business Development, sub-Saharan Africa
Sybase365 is launching a Global USSD Hub now offered to their existing client MNOs over existing SS7 links:
Operator Services
Sybase 365 has the most extensive, private, operator-grade network for mobile messaging available.
mCommerce Services
The mCommerce product suite is an end-to-end mobile commerce solution for banks, financial institutions, mobile operators and merchants.
Enterprise Services
Sybase 365 offers a comprehensive set of flexible, high-performance mobile messaging services.
From mobile messaging interoperability to mobile content delivery and mobile commerce services, for operators, brands and content providers, enterprises and financial institutions, we have the market covered. That means we deliver more mobile services to wherever you are, or need to be.
Six continents
Reach to 850 global operators
Reach to 4 billion mobile subscribers
Delivering 1.4+ billion messages per day
Posted 6 days ago
3. J S (Seppy) Nyang’oro
Strategy Consultant & Entrepreneur
Why would MNOs agree to participate in any USSD inter-carrier traffic exchange? I mean what would be the incentive for them to do that? For one, major MNO such as Zain (with their own one zain network) are already providing USSD exchange service in their own multi-country, multi-continent network. Others are doing the same; but I agree there seem to be disjointed effort at best. But maybe that’s because nobody has articulated to them the benefits of this potential service.
Posted 5 days ago
4. Chris Eyles
Guys as the MNO cant (or don’t) bill on the USSDC channel any general inter operator agreement is a long way away – it will require originating / termination agreements (with associated payment settlement)
A gradually bespoke model may evolve driven by the demand of regional clients and Sybase are well positioned create the scale and relationships required as it is an adjacency to their existing SMS interconnect business
Posted 5 days ago
5. Valentin Micic
PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT at PHAROS CONSULTING
Well… not only MNO’s cannot bill, but it does cost them to support USSD for foreign subscribers roaming within their networks. In a strange and wonderful way, this may help the effort to regulate inter-connect USSD traffic. The argument may be made to the tune of: you are already supporting roaming USSD traffic and it cost you to do so. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to recover this cost through a bilateral agreements?
As for Sybase… well, if they are so well positioned maybe they should:
1) Provide a meaningful input to the topic;
2) Pay LinkedIn for the advertisement that they’ve just placed;
Posted 5 days ago
6. Chris Eyles
Yes an evolving series of bilaterals based on existing GSMA SMS agreements where the Network originating and Mobile termination elements are charged and allocated (similar to international SMS) may just cross the tipping point to a larger exchange.
USSD has some extremely interesting points of differentiation as a messaging layer that make pursuing this dream a
SMS cant be billed natively (needs a gateway with billing functions i.e an SMSC) but there is lots of trusted(?) interconnect that doesn’t go through the local SMSC that is successfully mediated and charged.
I think Sybases’ point was that they believe such a thing is possible, hence why they are working on it, so is more valuable to this discussion than the usual “I have one talk to me” promotional posting that you are concerned with
(I, nor my family, do not hold any shares in Sybase 
Posted 4 days ago
7. Shaun Campbell
Director, Business Development, sub-Saharan Africa
Folks,
the reason I responded to this thread is that there is a very significant gap in commercial USSD service provision from MNOs in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa which is well provisioned) for USSD VAS/WASP services and in particular in my world – mCommerce/mBanking over USSD.
In my real-life experience in setting up mCommerce services, on average less than 2 in 4 MNOs have a USSD Gateway installed and possibly only 1 in 4 have a full product policy with a working billing capability. The market is changing fast though. For example, 6 month ago in Kenya only Safaricom had a commercial USSD capability. Orange, Zain and Yu were not ready. Now, only Zain remains outside the commercial USSD world. This is a good case for Africa, where 3 of 4 have commercial USSD. Several countries have no offering, or 1 in 3 MNOs are “thinking about it”.
The MNOs do not favour USSD so much as SMS because USSD impacts on the GSM side of the voice capacity, so they typically say that USSD will be detrimental to their voice capacity, connectivity & quality, which is already an issue for some MNOs (more voice traffic demand than the network can carry at peak periods). This makes it hard for VAS/WASPs, banks, mCommerce projects to offer national, MNO agnostic, USSD short codes.
So, back to the topic. Sybase recongize that many MNOs are not sure about investing in the capital cost of USSD Gateways & billing solutions but they are probably already connected to Sybase’s ‘exchanges’, where SMS, MMS, GPRS, IP exchanges that sit on SS7 around the world.
Hence, it is possible to add USSD to the list of Sybase global exchanges and at the same time offer hosted USSD Gateways + billing for those MNOs that don’t have a solution. In turn, enhanced global interoperability becomes more of an option and billing for USSD roaming can be made more of a possibility, so everybody should be a little happier.
Another point is that some local companies (such as VAS providers in Africa) are starting to look at the possibility of offering hosted USSD Gateways to African MNOs (who can’t motivate themselves to install their own) in the same manner, whether it is an IP or SS7 connection to the MNO. IP is of course a more feasible option.
Here is a real example in line with this topic. Today, a customer of an mCommerce project running over USSD in ‘Country A’ can take their SIM card from ‘Country A’, arrive in ‘County C’, and as long as the customer has GSM roaming switch on the ‘Country A’ USSD service works in ‘Country C’, subject to some minor delays due to extra hops in the roaming connection. Wouldn’t it be beneficial for the MNO in ‘Country C’ if they could bill the MNO in ‘Country A’ for that roaming USSD traffic, or at least net-off? This is the key point of the thread, right?
As Africa’s mobile development moves to a more integrated community of mobile networks across the territory (such as Zain’s One network) and away from non-integrated national-only networks (as was the case 2+ years ago) and the individual subscribers become more & more international / regional in their work and travel, then roaming USSD is a growing topic.
With the rapid onset of mCommerce & mBanking in Africa USSD has been rediscovered and is now in demand after decades of little interest (SA being an exception where USSD has taken off well). So, USSD isn’t going away anytime soon as it holds a unique characteristic of being reliable (it is either on or off, like an IP session), fairly cost effective and generally secure enough for many banking / commerce applications. (USSD is still the best of a compromised bunch when it comes to Africa). Sadly CDMA has no USSD equivalent.
That’s my perspective. By the way, I have no shares in Sybase either.
Cheers, Shaun
Posted 4 days ago