AT&T views the rise of open network APIs as an inflection point in how operators will be able to monetize their network deployments, but those efforts require an initial focus on partnering with the right organizations to steer that inflected point in the right direction.

Stephanie Ormston, assistant VP for digital services integration at AT&T, noted that the carrier has been working through this API evolution for nearly a decade, reaching back to the operator’s initial push in virtualizing its network architecture. Those efforts hit a significant milestone in 2020, when the operator surpassed an ambitious virtualization goal, and the following year when it decided to sell its internally developed Network Cloud technology to Microsoft.

[caption id="attachment_134946" align="alignnone" width="658"] Stephanie Ormston, assistant VP for digital services integration, AT&T.[/caption]

These moves have allowed AT&T to position its network as an operational layer onto which revenue-generating revenues can be built and supported.

“We want our network API strategy and we want our network to be the programmable application upon which they can build out all of those diverse use cases,” Ormston said.

That programmability was there to an extent with previous 4G LTE networks, but operators failed to take advantage of that possibility and most of those profits went to the application-story community. AT&T doesn’t want to miss that opportunity this time.

“Building out networks is really expensive, and what we realized is there was more that we could have done around 4G, and so we see 5G as the opportunity to take advantage of that,” Ormston said. “Within that I think there's the cost efficiencies that can be realized, the optimization that can be realized, but we also do believe that there is going to be a next evolution in the next generation of technology and innovation in the market and we want our network to be not only in support of that, but to be the place that we can co-create and co-develop that type of innovation and share in that value creation.”

Analysts have pointed out that operators have so far failed in these efforts.

“Thus far, the 5G era has been playing out very similarly to the 4G era when [communication service providers] invested hundreds of billions of dollars in spectrum and network infrastructure and realized paltry ROI as the majority of the new value from those investments went to over-the-top players, most notably hyperscalers,” Chris Antlitz, principal analyst at Technology Business Research, wrote in a recent research note.

The market received a broad boost earlier this year when industry trade group GSMA launched its Open Gateway initiative. That initiative is targeted at standardizing network APIs that the telecom industry can offer to the developer and application community to simplify revenue-generating interactions.

That work built on the open-source Camara project GSMA launched last year with the Linux Foundation. AT&T was one of more than 20 companies that threw their support behind the GSMA initiative at launch.

Ormston also touted AT&T’s recent work with the TM Forum through that organization’s Catalyst program, where the operator was involved in a trio of interoperability projects. One of those involved work on exposing network APIs through hyperscaler platforms to reach the developer community.

Ormston noted that these organization-based efforts are complementary to work AT&T is also doing internally.

“They are definitely a mechanism to help bring together the conversation and focus the conversation around the problems that we are grappling with, which is really to catalyze the industry, to figure out what developers want, figure out what those particular capabilities really need to be,” Ormston said. “We've found these groups to be a supportive environment to kind of kick the tires on those questions and figure out how do we attack this together and how do we attack this collectively.”

Vendors are also throwing their hats into the API ring.

Nokia recently unveiled a network-as-code platform that includes an SDK, network API documentation, a sandbox for creating software code, code snippets that can be included in applications, and developer analytics to track usage. Like many others, Nokia’s efforts are based on the GSMA Open Gateway initiative and the Camara Project, but the vendor added its own flavor on top of those efforts.

“In order to win in this particular market with developers, the Camara initiative and Open Gateway are necessary but not sufficient,” Shkumbin Hamiti, GM of Nokia’s network monetization platform business unit, explained during a press briefing. “You need to have the developer experience offered to them, and that is what is really important for the telco industry to get right, but Camara will just make it very simple to aggregate across the operators. And then even for the operators that want to open up these to the developers, the developers would have a good understanding of those APIs.”

Hamiti added that the Nokia platform “is fully compatible with Camara. … I think that has to be very clear. But there will be APIs that are different, maybe not standardized in Camara, which is very normal, and what we will see from all the platform players out there.”

Nokia rival Ericsson has also jumped on board as the vendor launched a similar platform earlier this month in a deal with German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom.

AT&T’s Ormston noted that these efforts do point toward real progress toward open API models that could benefit all financially, but details still need to be nailed down. She stated one of the biggest hurdles remains defining minimum network capabilities that need to be supported so developers can start working to innovate on top of 5G platforms.

“Really figuring out what those baseline requirements are is something that we're still trying to work through,” Ormston said. “I think our industry collaborators, our vendor partners and other operators can come together to help figure that out, but I think if the developers can also start to provide that feedback, that'll really help us provide what we need. It's that feedback loop that is missing right now. I think that’s what we're working toward.”