Brussels – Belgium, 24th April 2013: BICS, a global provider of wholesale carrier services, today announced that it enabled Tango and Belgacom Mobile to successfully perform their first 4G/LTE Data Roaming session in Europe between Belgium and Luxemburg.

LTE roaming poses a great challenge for LTE operators. It requires a brand new roll-out of technical interconnections and commercial agreements between all mobile networks to make it work, supported by a completely new all-IP international Signalling infrastructure.

The 4G/LTE Data Roaming sessions carried out between Tango and Belgacom Mobile have been established using BICS’ state of the art IPX network and LTE Diameter Signalling service.

IPX enables mobile operators to exchange any bilateral IP traffic (voice, video, messaging and data) with any IPX destination, through one single interconnection and with an end-to-end management of quality.

Additionally, the IPX and LTE Signalling networks have been designed to significantly accelerate the roll-out of LTE Roaming by offering the possibility to transport mobile operators’ 4G/LTE traffic across the world with low latency, guaranteed quality of service, capital and operating expense savings, cascaded billing and payments in a fully secured environment.

"With 4G being deployed in more than 150 networks and the number of subscribers crossing the 100 million mark, LTE Roaming is now becoming a reality for mobile users across the globe, says Mikaël Schachne, VP Mobile Data Business at BICS. “By taking advantage of this framework, which enables the seamless delivery of LTE Signalling and user traffic at the highest possible quality level, Tango and Belgacom Mobile have taken a significant step towards enabling global 4G Roaming for their subscribers.”

“We are extremely proud of having successfully performed, in Europe, the first roaming call over 4G with a Tango subscription. This major event strengthens our innovation spirit and further reinforces our leadership in mobile broadband in Luxemburg.” says Didier Rouma, CEO at Tango Luxemburg. “We have already many thousands of 4G users nationally; with this significant step we’ll soon be able to enlarge their experience abroad.”