Where local breakout is used
Local breakout serves any mobile service whose users are somewhere other than the operator's home network. These are the five uses we see, what each needs from the breakout, and how it is met.
Roaming subscribers
An operator's own customers, travelling abroad, expect their handset to behave as it does at home: pages loading promptly, and services recognising where they are. Home-routed roaming gives them neither.
With local breakout, a customer abroad reaches the internet in the region they are visiting, from a local address, while remaining the operator's subscriber on the operator's tariff.
- WhoMobile network operators and MVNOs
- NeedsPerformance and a local address abroad
- BreakoutIn the regions customers travel to
Travel eSIM
A data eSIM sold to a traveller is judged almost entirely on how the internet feels in the country they have landed in. A service that routes everything through one distant country is slow, and presents the traveller to every website as being somewhere else.
Breakout in the destination region gives a travel eSIM the experience its customers are paying for.
- WhoTravel eSIM brands and the MVNEs behind them
- NeedsA local experience in each destination
- BreakoutIn the destinations sold
Global IoT fleets
Devices deployed across many countries often report to services hosted near them, or need to reach the internet for updates and time. Carrying that traffic to one home country and out again adds delay and cost to every exchange, and concentrates a worldwide fleet on a single point.
Regional breakout keeps each device's traffic in its own region.
IoT and mobile data →- WhoIoT connectivity providers
- NeedsShort paths, and no single point for the whole fleet
- BreakoutClose to where devices are deployed
Connected vehicles
In-vehicle internet is a consumer service delivered in a car that crosses borders. Passengers expect the internet of the country they are driving through, not that of the country where the service happens to be homed.
This is the use we have delivered at scale, and it is described on its own page.
The connected-vehicle project →- WhoVehicle manufacturers and their connectivity suppliers
- NeedsA local experience in every country driven through
- BreakoutIn each country served
Private enterprise access
Not all mobile traffic is bound for the internet. An enterprise customer's SIMs may need to reach only that customer's own systems. In that case the traffic is delivered privately, over IPSec or a direct interconnect, into the customer's network or cloud environment, and never touches the public internet.
The same interconnection with the operator carries both kinds of traffic.
- WhoOperators serving enterprise customers
- NeedsA private route to the customer's systems
- DeliveryIPSec or direct interconnect, not the internet
A use we have not described?
Tell us what the service is and where its users are. An engineer will respond with whether, and how, local breakout would serve it.
Work with us →