Can Existing Roaming Settlement Platforms Handle the NTN Leg?

IN BRIEF

The industry is extending existing roaming and wholesale governance to non-terrestrial networks (NTN) rather than creating a parallel framework. Satellite aggregators are building settlement on TAP3, TADIG, RAP and NRTRDE, the same standards used for terrestrial roaming. For an operator already on a proven roaming settlement platform, adding a satellite partner is closer to partner onboarding than a platform change.

Is the industry creating a new settlement framework for NTN?

The most useful thing to understand about NTN settlement is what the industry has chosen not to do. GSMA’s wholesale agreements work is extending the existing roaming and wholesale governance model to non-terrestrial networks rather than defining a parallel framework from scratch. That single decision determines how much re-architecture operators face.

What standards are NTN players using for settlement?

Satellite aggregators building their own settlement capability are recruiting against a familiar specification. It is the vocabulary of terrestrial roaming settlement, applied to a satellite partner:

• TAP3 (Transferred Account Procedure) record generation, the standard format for exchanging roaming usage between operators.
• TADIG-compliant exchange, using GSMA’s standard operator identifiers and file-exchange conventions.
• RAP (Returned Account Procedure) for rejecting and disputing records.
• NRTRDE (Near Real-Time Roaming Data Exchange) for near-real-time fraud and usage monitoring.
• Clearing and tariff operations, including data and financial clearing house processes and inter-operator tariff calculation.

This confirms that the NTN leg is being settled on established rails.

If NTN settles like roaming, then a proven roaming settlement platform is an asset, not a starting point.

How does Subex Partner Ecosystem Management apply to NTN?

Subex Partner Ecosystem Management already runs TAP roaming settlement in production for operators managing large bilateral partner estates. The capabilities that matter for NTN are in production today rather than on a roadmap:

• Rating and matching with rule-based, tiered and origin-based rating across multiple service classes.
• Roaming file exchange, with TAP, RAP and NRTRDE handling aligned with the conventions the NTN ecosystem is adopting.
• Multi-tier partner modelling across operator, MVNO and aggregator tiers, as the three-party satellite chain requires, with configuration-driven commercial models so a new satellite partner is onboarded as configuration rather than a development project.
• IoT settlement and AI-assisted operations, supporting high-volume, low-ARPU IoT traffic, the dominant near-term NTN use case, with exception detection, root cause analysis and partner risk scoring across a partner estate too large to review manually.

Which NTN settlement requirements are still being built?

We would rather be precise than early. Several NTN requirements sit ahead of the standards, and Subex is treating them as active development rather than claiming them as solved:

• Satellite usage record ingestion. Adapters for records carrying operator identity, coverage layer and payload origin, where no single industry-standard format exists yet.
• Handover re-rating. Real-time re-rating across a mid-session terrestrial-to-non-terrestrial handover.
• Satellite rate cards. Templates specific to satellite spectrum bands, where commercial and regulatory terms differ from terrestrial bands.
• Authorisation checks. Validation of satellite footprint against regulatory authorisation at the rating stage, so service is not billed where it is not licensed.

What does this mean for operators already settling roaming on PEM?

For an operator already settling terrestrial roaming on Subex Partner Ecosystem Management, adding a satellite partner is closer to a partner onboarding exercise than a platform change. The same convergence programme that moves interconnect, TAP and future wholesale models toward GSMA’s BCE (Billing and Charging Evolution) standard also carries NTN. That is a low re-architecture path into a new revenue stream.

NTN does not need a new settlement platform. It needs a proven roaming platform that can treat a satellite operator as one more partner.