APIs are the building blocks of how the world of technology works. API calls are used to integrate applications with each other and these days account for the majority of global internet traffic. Telcos, who are often cut off from technology marches today, are looking for more ways to monetize next-generation networks like 5G and want to join him in action.
Today, the GSMA, the association representing the world’s major mobile operators, announced a new initiative of 21 operators called Open Gateway. It is a framework that provides open-source-based generic APIs to carrier networks so that developers can access and use various mobile networks. Services such as location and identity verification and carrier billing that were previously more complex and expensive (if not impossible) to integrate and use. The plan is to enable more 5G business for mobile carriers by allowing applications such as immersive mixed reality experiences and web3 applications to start developing more using the API.
Coinciding with the kickoff of MWC, the GSMA’s major trade show in Barcelona, Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure are the first to work with carriers to give developers access to APIs. Named as one of the two leading cloud providers.
The first carriers to sign up for Open Gateway are America Movil, AT&T, Axiata, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, e& Group, KDDI, KT, Liberty Global, MTN, Orange, Singtel, Swisscom, STC and Telefónica , Telenor, Telstra, TIM, Verizon, Vodafone. These carriers have signed a memorandum of understanding that allows developers to provide “enhanced” network capabilities.
Carriers have invested billions of dollars in new network technologies, but these networks are underutilized. Part of this movement stems from their attempt to launch.
“The GSMA Open Gateway will enable single point access to ultra-broadband networks and provide a catalyst for immersive technology and Web3, giving us the ability to unlock our potential and reach critical mass. In addition to the GSMA, he is also CEO and Chairman of Telefónica: “Operators have come a long way in developing global platforms that connect everyone and everything. By applying the roaming concept of interoperability, mobile operators and cloud services are truly integrated, enabling a new world of opportunities.In this new digital ecosystem, collaboration between operators and cloud providers will be possible. It’s essential.”
No details were provided on which services might be rolled out first. It starts with the status (to let users know if they are connected to a home or roaming network), number verification, and API specifications for eight services. Edge site selection and routing, number verification (SMS 2FA), carrier billing or checkout, device location (if the service requires location verification) More APIs are planned for this year. For example, SIM swap already has malicious connotations, but at the MWC event there will be many demonstrations showing how to use the API.
This news is an interesting development given the history of mobile carriers and the role they have played, especially since smartphone usage skyrocketed.
Mobile operators have long feared becoming a “bit pipe”. This is a commodity where services are sold at increasingly competitive (low margin) prices. It was a fate that seemed inevitable when smartphones and apps appeared: new content was delivered through his network (rather than the network itself). App stores controlled by phone manufacturers (not carriers) distributed and charged for that content. Also, companies such as Apple and Google are becoming increasingly vocal about how network services themselves are provisioned.
However, operators have long believed they could use the advantage of building a key relationship with their users in acquiring basic services such as voice and data to stem bitpipe’s downgrade. I was. Along with that basic provisioning, various features they thought would give you the opportunity to build your own app store and more.
However, the success of various initiatives has been mixed. Now, the move towards opening up these mobile networks by creating APIs to make it easier for third parties to use these tools could be in one of two ways: there is. It is worth thinking about this in a more modern way in order to bring further evolution and advancement to the industry. By building APIs that work anywhere along the way people can easily move between networks while traveling, we give developers less fragmentation and more scalable options. Or you can read it as a kind of defeat. If you can’t beat the tech giants, join us.
Amazon and Microsoft have built long-term relationships with carriers. This is also to build trust with carriers that have been viewed as a threat for years. (Both have given carriers their own competitive edge in the past, but Microsoft has a longer and more complicated history here, aided by Nokia’s disastrous acquisition.) As a foreshadowing, AWS will work with a number of new carrier products to build and operate mobile networks. And last night Microsoft released its own new service for carriers.
Technology partners are predictably singing the praises and possibilities of this deal at GSMA events.
Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, said in a statement: “We look forward to bringing the GSMA Open Gateway Initiative to Microsoft Azure to empower developers and operators to monetize the value of his 5G investments.”
Ishwar Parulkar, chief technologist for telecom operations at AWS, sees the steps being taken here as a stepping stone to technology companies, not telcos, especially among developers a few years ago to access SMS functionality. I likened it to the next step in the progress initiated by Twilio with a radical API.
“It’s about network as a service,” he said in an interview. AWS in 2019 he has been working on 5G and cloud services for it. [even then] If we could add an API, we could change the experience. It took nearly four years, but it looks like it’s here.
As with payments, location services, etc. these days, software solutions will always work no matter what carriers do, so who will be the easiest to adopt first, developers and ultimately users The question is whether it can be done in practice.
Simon Buckingham, founder of 5G consultancy Nonvoice, said in an interview: “It’s like edge computing, if you can start charging for quality as a service for carriers that have spent millions of dollars on infrastructure, if they can charge a premium for that, it could be a game changer. The question is whether they can do it faster and better than hyperscalers.
