The GSMA Open Gateway initiative has made significant progress toward unifying efforts between the telecommunication and cloud ecosystems that will allow those telecom operators to better monetize their significant 5G investments, but it admittedly has a way to go before those efforts materialize.

GSMA launched the Open Gateway initiative at its MWC Barcelona 2023 event. The initiative is targeted at standardizing network APIs that the telecom industry can offer to the developer and application community to simplify revenue-generating interactions.

Open Gateway uses common, northbound service APIs to expose a mobile operator’s network capabilities “within a consistent, interoperable and federated framework.” The project launched with eight APIs, including support for SIM swap, quality on demand, device status, number verification, edge site selection and routing, two-factor authentication and carrier billing.

The work also builds on the open-source Camara project GSMA launched with the Linux Foundation in early 2022. The GSMA Open Gateway APIs are defined, developed and published in Camara.

The Open Gateway initiative has since progressed toward 17 APIs being release, with another 11 ready to be accessed in Camara.

The Open Gateway initiative launched with support from more than 20 companies, including global operator heavyweights AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, Verizon and Vodafone. It also included positive commentary from most of the cloud ecosystem’s largest players, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft.

Henry Calvert, head of networks at GSMA, noted that reception to the initiative has “been fairly phenomenal,” noting particular strengths across the telecom, cloud and aggregator spaces. This includes 53 operator groups representing 247 mobile networks and 67% of the global mobile market share and 16 channel partners that act like “aggregators or resellers or marketplaces like [Amazon Web Services] and Azure.”

Calvert explained that this progress is important for operators that want to mimic the operational success of the cloud ecosystem, and more importantly for those operators to become viable partners for that cloud ecosystem. This means making the network more programmable using cloud-native architectures and meeting the need of those hyperscalers that are serving their customers.

That hyperscaler support is key to this progress. Calvert noted the fact that the hyperscalers are even participating in the program “is music to my ears.”

“The ability to get Azure to even mention something about mobility access or anything like that, I think we’ve done a fabulous job,” Calvert said.

Well-oiled financial machine But this progress does put pressure on the GSMA and the broader ecosystem to deliver on this opportunity. The trade group does not shy away from the fact that past efforts to collectivize telecom operator involvement in similar initiatives have failed to gain sustainable traction in the market.

“The ultimate impact of this sector-wide API strategy relies on the participation of scaled distribution partners, most importantly hyperscalers and Open Gateway aggregators – companies that connect multiple operators to multiple developers,” GSMA’s Intelligence analyst division noted in a recent report. “These companies have already amassed legions of developers and go-to-market channels that the operators will require to monetize their networks at scale. Most of them see GSMA Open Gateway as a win–win, as it brings further API assets for their own channels. However, this should not be taken for granted; connecting developers to the Open Gateway value proposition will require work and messaging.”

Calvert said it’s important for operators to work hand-in-hand with the cloud ecosystem to avoid repeating history.

“That's the hyperscalers’ job, and they will tell us if it's not frictionless because they want a frictionless experience,” Calvert said. “That's their business and that's why we think partnership with them is so important. They will tell us what the restrictions are.”

Calvert also noted that partnership is important to make sure the “supply side” becomes a “well-oiled machine.”

IDC recently forecast that the worldwide telecommunication and network API market will generate $6.7 billion in revenues by 2028, which is a significant 57.1% compound annual growth rate based on the $700 million in revenues generated last year. The research firm notes that growth will take advantage of the growing shift of those networks toward supporting more digital- and platform-based capabilities that can serve high-value industry segments.

The IDC report noted that this opportunity has put additional pressure on telecommunication service providers to be more aggressive in positioning themselves against more technologically advanced and focused industry segments that have historically taken most of this revenue opportunity.

“While the telecom industry has a mixed history of API monetization, its latest focus on novel network APIs is being championed by all leading telecom service providers to include global support from key API aggregators, such as the hyperscale cloud providers and leading [communication platform-as-a-service] entities,” Patrick Filkins, research manager for IoT and telecom network infrastructure at IDC, noted in the report. “Even so, the long-term success of these efforts is expected to largely fall to the broader ecosystem consisting of API aggregators and systems integrators that can generate the value propositions required for market education and adoption to take place.”

IDC’s numbers align with what Juniper Research recently forecast in a similar report. That prediction stated that telecommunication operators need to embrace enterprise efforts around APIs and IoT if they want to maximize their 5G networks, adding that those efforts will be part of a $900 billion global telecommunications market in 2024.

The research firm specifically cited the use of cloud technologies to support APIs that adhere to the open source Camara project and industry work around the GSMA Open Gateway initiative.

Enterprises need to know about Open Gateway However, for those financial targets to be hit, the Open Gateway community needs to foster demand. Calvert said an important part of this is to educate different enterprise verticals on the benefits of the program.

“Enterprise still don't know about it enough, and that's what I need to do. I need to talk to the enterprises a lot more,” Calvert said, noting that this could be a bottleneck for the progress the Open Gateway initiative is making on the supply side. “As that well-oiled machine on the supply side starts to deliver through, we really want to actually see the enterprises start to actually use these capabilities in earnest and start talking about the value that is being created in the marketplaces.”

GSMA’s expansion efforts also include more outreach to channel partners “because that’s one step closer to the developers.”

Calvert noted the financial technology (fintech) market has been a quick adopter of Open Gateway use cases, but that GSMA will use the next six to 12 months to interact with more channel partners.

“It's not just about Mobile World Congresses, it's about the other events to communicate and outreach that we're driving,” Calvert said. “Next year will always next year will be about the developers. How do we create the demands out there in the industry. How do we bring together e-commerce or mobility sectors to say, ‘what do you want, how do you want to program the network?’ This is getting developers to actually state what they want, what they require, what they need, what are their pain points and what do they need to do. And that'll be the next wave in 2025, and then we can start setting specifications and standards with Camara, TMForum and the GSMA to actually drive through.”