A group of large international network operators is setting up a joint venture with equipment supplier Ericsson to market interfaces for their mobile networks. The joint venture aims to bring the APIs of different networks under one roof and offer them to customers such as cloud providers, hyperscalers, platform operators or software makers. The company to be set up does not have a name yet.
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The establishment of the joint venture is expected to be completed in the first half of 2025, the network operators involved announced on Thursday. In addition to Ericsson, which will hold 50 percent of the joint venture, the participants include Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile USA, Verizon, AT&T, Telstra, America Movil and others.
“defining moment”
“Today is a pivotal moment for the mobile industry and a milestone in our strategy to open up the network to new revenue opportunities,” said Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm. “The global API platform creates unified access for millions of developers.”
The joint venture is based on the Open Gateway initiative, which was launched by network operator association GSMA at MWC Barcelona 2023. It aims to create standardized access to telecommunications services regardless of the infrastructure.
Open Gateway Initiative brings its interface to the Linux Foundation Project “Camera” One. The new company is also committed to this. “This collaboration will advance the GSMA Open Gateway initiative and provide customers with a unified camera API,” said José María Álvarez-Pallete, CEO of Telefónica.
The new joint venture will now create a commercial provider that will market the interface. This partnership will enable companies and developers to develop new applications for global telecommunications networks. “Access to 5G networks through the interface is fundamentally changing the telecommunications industry,” says Margherita Della Valle, CEO of Vodafone.
The functions of modern 5G networks provided via APIs were previously inaccessible to developers. Examples include verification of financial transactions, verification of quality of service or location verification for applications.
“It has been made much simpler now”
“Anyone who develops digital applications that use information from the network previously had to talk to each individual network operator and create an individual solution for their network,” explains Tanja Richter, head of technology at Vodafone Germany. “It’s much easier now.”
Other network operators are invited to join the joint venture. “We encourage other telecom providers to join in order to expand this ecosystem and develop it further,” says telecom boss Tim Hottjes. Discussions with Three Sweden are currently ongoing.
(vbr)
