This initiative, which will be done in collaboration with the main network (GSMA) and cloud (Linux Foundation/CNCF) industry bodies, has as its mission the definition of APIs for exposing network capabilities to third parties.
“This initiative is important for global operators like Telefónica, as the exposure of capabilities to third parties constitutes a new source of revenue, allows accelerating innovation and the rollout of new services, transforming our network into a programmable services platform, and allows monetising investments in fibre, edge computing and 5G”. JUAN CARLOS GARCIA LOPEZ, Senior VP Technology Development & Ecosystem, Telefonica
The design of the APIs will be built around three principles:
- Open APIs: seed code with Apache2.0 licence
- Global APIs: to deliver a uniform and consistent experience to 3rd parties in a global footprint, facilitating portability (and replicability) of applications and services across different telco platforms. The fact that operators expose APIs with the same capabilities and data structures is key to onboarding third parties (hyperscalers, verticals, app developers, OTT service providers), through an attractive economy of scale for them.
- User-friendly APIs: that are easy to use by third parties, many of them without telco experience/background. It is important to abstract the usual complexity of standards APIs (3GPP, ETSI, etc.) and offer them a simple API, focused on their objectives, and based on intentions.
Once the APIs are defined, they will be developed, tested and validated through real use cases. We will keep you informed.
