• Many major telcos are pinning their enterprise sector growth hopes on the exposure of network functions via common APIs
• The Linux Foundation’s Camara project is where the telecom sector has come together on network API specifications development   
• Camara now has 25 common APIs that can be deployed by network operators
• But having network API specs is one thing – having a network API business model and generating revenues is another

Telcos aiming to drive new business opportunities from the exposure of their network capabilities via standardised APIs will be encouraged by the news that specifications are now available from the Linux Foundation’s Camara project for 25 common network APIs and that they come with key security and interoperability functionality for developers seeking to integrate the APIs into their applications. 

The 25 APIs, details about which were unveiled at the Open Source Summit Europe in Vienna, include some (such as location verification, number verification and SIM swap) that have been available for more than a year already and are already being used by telcos around the world to securely expose their network functions to developers. But the Camara project, which was launched in February 2022 by the Linux Foundation and partner industry organisation the GSMA, is pitching this package of specifications as its first “official release” (aka ‘Meta-Release Fall24’). The graphic above provides the names of the APIs and identifies which ones have been available previously and which are new: For further details, see this Camara project page on the GitHub developer platform. 

From hereon in, the project, which adopted a funded model a year ago and now boasts 396 participating organisations and more than 1,100 contributors, will deliver updates to vetted APIs twice a year “so network operators can plan the deployment in their networks” and “API users can be confident to get the latest and most stable versions from their network operators and API providers.” 

The APIs, developed under the auspices of 13 Camara sub projects, “have been vetted for quality, consistency, and stability through rigorous release management processes” and, importantly, come with “a security and interoperability profile based on OAuth 2.0 and OpenID standards, ensuring the secure, privacy-friendly and seamless access for developers to network information and capabilities,” noted the Linux Foundation in this announcement. 

“I am incredibly proud of the entire Camara ecosystem – from developers to members and partners – for achieving our community’s first Meta Release,” said Nathan Rader, board chair of Camara and VP of service and capability exposure at Deutsche Telekom. “This milestone is a significant step forward in our mission to enable seamless access to telecom network capabilities through open APIs. The global support we’ve received underscores the industry’s focus on [and] commitment to simplifying API availability across telecom networks and countries,” he added. 

So Camara is offering plenty of network API specifications to enable the operators to expose their network capabilities to the developer community, but that doesn’t mean anyone will make use of them or that the network operators will be able to generate market traction and revenue-generating opportunities as a result of their network API implementations. That business development and financial angle does not fall within the remit of the Camara project – it’s giving the operators the tools but the telcos need to figure out how to make something of the ensuing opportunities.

That’s the part of the API ecosystem that has generated a lot of debate already this year, as well as some interesting insights during discussions and a session at this year’s DSP Leaders World Forum in June – see Network APIs? Let’s get on with it.

This is where the Open Gateway initiative, spearheaded by the GSMA and the TM Forum, can help, as it enables the industry bodies to offer their operator members a structured way to make use of the Camara APIs and develop an associated strategy. As the Linux Foundation notes: “A critical success factor is also the established alignment with GSMA Open Gateway and TM Forum about forming an open, global, accessible API ecosystem. The benefit for customers and developers comes in the form of consistent and user-friendly access to network capabilities, thus enabling developers to seamlessly deploy applications to run consistently across telco networks and countries. This prevents fragmentation and empowers faster, more versatile advancement of global application portability and broad industry adoption of new features and capabilities.”

But again, that’s enablement – it’s not directly generating developer traction or brokering deals. 

That’s why, only days ago, a dozen major telcos – América Móvil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Reliance Jio, Singtel, Telefonica, Telstra, T-Mobile US, Verizon and Vodafone – teamed up with Ericsson (specifically the vendor’s Vonage unit) to form an new company focused on network API-related business development and revenue generation. That as yet unnamed company (to be formed by early next year) will provide network APIs based on Camara specifications to a broad ecosystem of developer platforms, including hyperscalers, communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) providers, system integrators (SIs) and independent software vendors (ISVs). Ericsson’s Vonage division and Google Cloud will “partner with the new company, providing access to their ecosystems of millions of developers as well as their partners.”

That’s a start, and those telcos between them boast more than a billion mobile subscribers and are keen to have other operators join that particular gang. But there are more than 400 mobile operators globally, so there’s still a lot of developer community engagement to be done if network APIs are to move the needle on telco top and bottom lines. The Camara project is delivering on its remit and the industry bodies are being proactive in helping their members to position themselves as best they can to capitalise on any market opportunities, but it’s fair to say the jury is still out on what the ultimate outcome will be.  

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV