Virtual Home Environment (VHE), an Intelligent Number Translation solution, provides both convenience and value to customers when roaming outside of their home network. With VHE, the mobile operator’s roaming customers still have access to the short codes they normally use while in their home network.

VHE benefits to the operator include an increase in revenue because roamers make more calls while roaming due to the convenience of VHE. Operators can also charge an additional fixed monthly service fee when VHE is bundled as part of a roaming package for frequent travelers. As problems related to consumer inability to access familiar services when roaming disappear with VHE, operators will also notice a cost savings due to reduced calls to customer care.

Another useful feature of the VHE solution is its ability to modify the digits dialed by the customer when roaming—that is the customer can add their home country code and international access code. This feature is useful for customers who travel regularly and rely on the address book in their handset for placing calls. Most users store numbers in their address book without international access codes, country codes or area codes making international calls difficult when roaming. VHE eliminates this inconvenience.