Telcos team up for Spanish network API lab

To help them, they have roped in i2CAT, the Barcelona-based research centre specialising in telecoms and related tech – including but not limited to 5G/6G, IoT, AI, cybersecurity, blockchain and non-terrestrial networks (NTNs).

It can now add APIs to the list.

Together with the telcos, it will host a lab dedicated to accelerating the adoption of interoperable APIs, creating joint use cases, and establishing new performance benchmarks. The partners will design tests and roll out testbeds in a bid to reach consensus on the optimal deployment of existing and newly-developed APIs. It will also serve as an industry forum, hosting discussions on all matters API-related.

On the practical side, researchers will be able to avail themselves of advanced tools, tech support, and – crucially – a test environment that replicates multi-operator network capabilities, ensuring that applications based on open APIs are actually interoperable.

The new lab is part of the GSMA's Open Gateway initiative, the mobile industry's well-documented and cunning plan to (hopefully) generate a bit of extra revenue by letting developers integrate various network-related functions into their apps.

"Thanks to this collaboration, we will create an innovation environment with specific use cases that enhances multi-operator cooperation, an essential component of the Open Gateway initiative," said Irene Bernal, director of product and strategy for Telefónica Open Gateway. "In addition, we are relying on the leadership of i2CAT, a benchmark in technological research with which we have already collaborated on multiple projects. The participation of operators, customers and public-private links will enhance the capacity to develop new opportunities for the entire digital ecosystem."

MasOrange et al will also undertake a collaborative effort to develop brand new network APIs, potentially unlocking even more value for operators. All new APIs will developed under the CAMARA framework – the open source project administered by the Linux Foundation, the GSMA and TM Forum – to ensure they can function on any network.

Open Gateway "represents a paradigm shift in the way the telecommunications sector designs and markets new mobile applications and digital services," said Víctor del Pozo, general manager of innovation, alliances and new services at MasOrange.

"Spain is once again a pioneer in the creation of an open framework for collaboration, led by the GSMA and the operators, which now also includes i2CAT as a key technological partner with the aim of seeking specific solutions to the challenges that companies and administrations face on a daily basis," he said. "We are convinced that these challenges can be managed even better thanks to the additional capabilities that the APIs derived from Open Gateway will provide."

It has been more than 18 months after the Open Gateway initiative launched, and the momentum behind API-related research and innovation shows little sign of abating.

Just this week, Nokia dusted off its chequebook and acquired API specialist Rapid, which hosts an API marketplace, and an enterprise-grade API hub for companies that want to develop and share their own APIs. The deal has the potential – once Rapid's assets have been combined with the Finnish kit maker's own Network as Code platform – to help Nokia play a central role in the emerging API ecosystem.

Such a sustained level of interest from the sector's leading lights all adds to the feeling that when it comes to shifting the needle on revenue, APIs represent a make-or-break moment for the industry.