A ‘common plug’ to which to connect to extract value from the data generated in the networks. This is what it has just launched. Thus begins the standardization of its technological framework to prevent companies and application developers from having to access this information in multiple ways to offer services such as sending SMS or knowing the location of users . From the GSMA they match the future impact of this measure with that of ‘roaming’. For the president of Telefónica and also of the organization, José María Álvarez-Pallete, the GSMA Open Gateway will allow “cloud services to be truly integrated to enable a new world of opportunities”.
This initiative has been launched with the support of some twenty mobile network operators from around the world. And for companies it represents a “paradigm field” in the way the telecommunications industry designs and bands services to IT businesses and developers. Until now, there was no standardization of what is known as API, each of the access doors for third parties of that data on the network. This made it necessary to develop solutions for each of these APIs. With this new technological layer being created, cloud service companies will only need to access through a common door.
For now the relatively simple APIs have been unified. In total, the GSMA initiative was born with ‘common plugs’ in eight specific areas. Among them is the quality of the telecommunications service on demand; device location or client authentication; number verification or billing. These are more or less common requests for information to the network of each of the telecommunications companies. The plan of the included operators is to launch new ones to complete the service throughout this year 2023.
“Developers can use the technology once, for services like identity, cybersecurity or billing, but with the potential to integrate with all carriers around the world; it is a profound change in the way we design and provide services”, explains Mats Granryd, general director of the GSMA, who compares the potential impact of this measure with that of the harmonization of voice services or the implementation of roaming .
From the telecommunications organization they compare the potential impact of this measure with that of the implementation of roaming in the past
“Collaboration between telecommunications operators and cloud providers is crucial in this new ecosystem,” defends Álvarez-Pallete. For the head of the telecommunications industry at Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ishwar Parulkar, the GSMA Open Gateway is an important step: “Developers who use the more than 200 AWS services will also be able to take advantage of the APIs of telecommunications operators. This allows the developer community to create new apps and telcos to open up new consumption and monetization models for their networks.” Microsoft is also going to include this initiative in its cloud to “stone developers and help operators monetize the value of their investments in 5G”, as recognized by Satya Nadella, president of the technology giant.
Among the operators that have developed this new solution around the GSMA are not only the three big ones that operate in Spain (Telefónica, Vodafone and Orange), but also some of the most relevant in other markets such as Liberty Global, Verizon and AT&T. in United States; América Móvil in Latin America; China Mobile in the Asian giant; and Deutsche Telekom, Telenor or TIM, in Europe.
