There is little question that network APIs will be a big topic in 2025. As we approached the end of 2024, the telco tech echo chamber was already reverberating with the sound of network APIs. Vendors continue to expand and evolve their narratives as pioneering operators such as T-Mobile sought new market frontiers by exposing their 5G SA network and making its capabilities available to developers through CAMARA-compliant APIs.
Just, four months after GSMA announced Open Gateway Initiative at Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona, Ericsson announced their NewCo joint venture (“NewCo JV”) in partnership with twelve global operators, Vonage and Google with the promise of democratizing network APIs.
What does this cascading series of network API developments mean for the mobile industry and its future?
The cornerstone of a grand vision
On November 7 of last year, neXt Curve attended an exclusive partner event hosted by Ericsson at their D-15 Innovation Lab in Santa Clara joined by a small company of some of the leading telco industry analysts. We had the opportunity to hear Erik Ekudden, Global CTO of Ericsson, Niklas Heuveldop, CEO of Vonage, and a host of Ericsson leadership and key ecosystem partners deliberate on a grand vision for the future of the mobile industry catalyzed by network APIs and the inevitable advent of what Ericsson has dubbed “differentiated connectivity”. As we closed out a long, information-packed day at D-15, it became clear that the NewCo JV will serve as the centerpiece of this vision.
Ericsson unveiled the NewCo JV back on September 12, 2024. “NewCo” was the temporary moniker for the recently named Aduna venture that will establish a network API exchange/aggregator of global scale. While the details of the corporate and governance structure are still works in process and yet to be disclosed, Ericsson is stated to hold 50 percent of the equity interest with the remaining half divided among twelve member operators which include, T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, Telefonica, Vodafone, Singtel, Jio, Bharti Airtel, America Movil, Deutsche Telekom, Telstra, and Orange.
Google and Vonage were announced as Aduna partners but as channel partners who will not have an equity stake in Aduna.
Aduna was established to bring about what Ericsson and member operators felt was the requisite global scale to maximize the market opportunity for network APIs and establish novel and compelling channels for operators to monetize the advanced 5G features and differentiated capabilities of their networks as they transition toward 5G standalone.
Ericsson is quick to point out that Aduna is not an extension of Vonage’s Global Network Platform (GNP) announced and launched in September of 2022 and has been in development for over two years. In essence, GNP will be subsumed by the Aduna entity and repurposed for its global, industrywide mission under what Ericsson describes as a non-discriminatory regime. Aduna will be setup as a neutral corporate concern separate from Vonage (hence Ericsson).
The Aduna entity is expected to receive regulatory approval for formation and launch in the first half of 2025, likely in time for Mobile World Congress 2025.
Beyond network APIs
The ambition of Aduna can only be fully appreciated in the complex, multi-layered context of industry reinvention in which network boundaries and borders are broken, or at least transversable. The industry and Ericsson hope that with network APIs, differentiated connectivity, and high-performing programmable networks (5G Standalone) will usher in a new era of opportunity for participating operators and a new frontier of innovation for enterprises.
To holistically understand Aduna’s purpose, it is important to clarify the role of network APIs. As neXt Curve has posited for years now, APIs are just interfaces that specify the “how” of accessing and ingesting data and/or a function/service of an application. API themselves don’t deliver the services or functions of a network. They merely invoke network capabilities and operational functions in the form of service and operating APIs (specified by TM Forum) according to the CAMARA NaaS (Network as a Service) reference architecture.
In our observation, qualifying the “network API” opportunity as such obfuscates and detracts from the bigger picture that Aduna seeks to foster for the industry. Aduna is seeking to bring about a global-scale market for exposed network capabilities aggregated across operator networks.
Why?
From the beginning, GNP was about enabling new categories of network-aware and -supercharged enterprise applications beyond traditional communications. This was one of the prime motivations for the Vonage acquisition. Aduna is to be heir apparent as it departs the Vonage fold when it goes live.
For this reason, network APIs should not be confused with the communications APIs that underpin CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) and their CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) brethren. Network APIs are largely connectivity and network related, not interfaces for communications services, though the CAMARA API library does have a small number of communications-related outliers.
It is better to think of network APIs as an access layer for connectivity and informational services off an operator’s network that can and will be used to augment communications services offered by CPaaS providers such as Vonage (owned by Ericsson) which currently uses network APIs through GNP to offer differentiated communications experiences to its customers.
Catalyzing the future of telco
The grand vision for Aduna is to realize a new virtuous flywheel of market creation for the mobile industry piggybacking off the GSMA Open Gateway Initiative industry movement and the open network API standards being specified by the Linux Foundation’s Project CAMARA. Ericsson represents this flywheel dynamic as one where developer access and use exposed network capabilities to deliver a new tier of 5G-enabled experiences for existing business and consumer applications while opening up new frontiers of enterprise and industrial innovation on top of modern mobile networks.
The thesis also asserts that next-level mobile experiences and new market frontiers in enterprise and industrial sectors will expand monetization opportunities for participating operators. The anticipated outcome would be additive returns on an operator’s investments in modernization, ideally involving the transition to 5G standalone.
The idea of Aduna is to expand the pool of “network API” opportunities globally by providing a platform for aggregating exposed network capabilities from as many operators within and across regions as possible to realize the proposition of pan-operator network APIs. Ericsson and its partners expect that these pooled capabilities and data accessed via common network APIs will encourage developers to innovate and enhance existing business applications with new network capabilities enabled by a critical mass of 5G-capable devices running on top of 5G standalone networks.
An example of the use of pan-operator or aggregated network API is fraud prevention in the financial sector. Without these APIs, a regional bank would have to establish separate arrangements with each regional operator to realize an aggregated SIM Swap API to enhance transaction authentication for their online banking application. Each operator could have a differing and proprietary implementation of network exposure APIs, different contract terms, and different pricing, making it costly and complex for a developer to aggregate the SIM Swap service on their own.
In this scenario, aggregated network APIs provide the regional banks with a single interface to get information across subscriber bases in a region or globally from participating operators. The expectation is that this simplification of the underlying complexities of harmonizing and exposing data and service sourced from across multiple operators reduces friction for developer adoption of exposed network capabilities.
The missing link for a network capability economy
What is the role of Aduna in the context of the network API flywheel?
Based on disclosed information, Aduna is poised to serve as an exchange (“API aggregator”), not to be confused with a marketplace, with the primary purpose of clearing and settling network API transactions. Aduna will also provide essential middleware and trust brokering functions between operators, channel partners, and developers needed for the global scaling of a “network capability economy” across diverse regulatory regimes, fragmented 5G adoption and deployments, and an increasingly contentious geopolitical landscape.
According to Ericsson, Aduna’s key mission statement is to take the friction out of exposing and consuming pan-operator sourced network capabilities. This entails the non-trivial endeavor of simplifying operator, channel partner, and developer participation by standardizing and streamlining onboarding, commercials, provisioning, trust assurance, regulatory compliance, security, and more.
It also requires Aduna keep transaction costs and fees to a minimum to foster currency and liquidity for network APIs while maximizing the benefit of engagement and use for operators, partners, and developers. This tenet mandates Aduna structure its business model for the “minimum” profit necessary for operational and financial sustainment, and continuous reinvestment in platform and service innovation.
For this reason, economic scaling of the Aduna exchange will be an imperative going forward. Erik Ekudden believes that the CAMARA open network API standard will play an essential role in realizing a svelte cost structure and minimizing the cost of integration and trusted engagement. The Open Gateway Initiative-inspired standards are also expected to provide the requisite transaction and technical interoperability between the supply and demand sides of the exchange to accelerate and scale the market for network APIs and services.
Building the network capability value chain
It’s important to understand that Aduna is intended for a catalytic role. It is not the main act. It is not the marketplace. It is likely not where ecosystem value will pool. This is by design.
So how will value be created and flow to hydrate this “network API” economy to the benefit of all ecosystem participants?
Aduna is expecting to nurture a fast-growing list of channel partners, starting with Google and Vonage who have direct line of sight to developers, their requirements and demand for aggregated network capabilities. Though developers have the option to tap network APIs going wholesale direct to Aduna, it is likely network APIs will be brokered through a cloud service provider such as AWS and GCP or any variety of “APIaaS” (API as a Service) marketplaces such as Vonage, Twilio, Rapid and the like. These partners have the scale and the captive developer communities.
Network APIs themselves tend to be narrow in scope and their value limited in isolation. The lion’s share of ecosystem value will be conveyed through network applications that provide a higher order of utility and function to developers, much like communications APIs. A good example is the fraud prevention application that leverages a number of network API such as SIM Swap, Location Insights, and Device Location together in a packaged solution delivered as a service.
Indeed, we see Vonage, its peers, and an increasing company of cloud service providers coming to market with fraud prevention applications leveraging network APIs. In February of 2024, AWS announced that it was partnering with Vonage to offer a fraud prevention solution for its financial sector customers.
These network applications are expected to amplify the volume of network API transactions which Ericsson and its Aduna partners hope will translate into greater revenue opportunity for member operators. They can also help network APIs enable new solutions that will resonate with developer’s customer – the business – who gets fraud prevention but doesn’t get SIM Swap API.
Possibilities beyond connectivity
Ericsson couples network APIs with differentiated connectivity, not to be confused with communications.
What is differentiated connectivity?
In simple terms, it is the full-lifecycle ability of an operator to deliver and monetize (the operational ability) an “end-to-end” network slice. This entails the operator has transitioned to a 5G standalone network and has modernized their OSS and BSS systems and their RAN to a cloud-native architecture making it software-defined and programmable.
In our observation, the so-called network API opportunity transcends differentiated connectivity. In order to see this hidden opportunity, we need to think of the network beyond what we consider it today, a dumb “best effort” data pipe. We need to holistically consider what is in and running on top of the network against the backdrop and inevitability of its changing nature as advanced features of 5G are adopted and implemented by operators.
The CAMARA APIs are of two types – informational and transactional. Interestingly, network API-enabled solutions such as fraud prevention leverage informational APIs that have little to do with connectivity. In fact, these solutions are not geared for mobile user. They address a need and market outside and off the network. Some of these applications can be of high value such as, increasingly, enhanced fraud prevention especially as cybersecurity threats and fraud-related losses continue to mount in the banking and financial services.
The transactional network APIs such as Quality on Demand (QOD) and Edge Cloud are interesting in that while they don’t directly deliver the differentiated connectivity or edge computing services, they in concert with informational APIs such as Simple Edge Discovery and Connectivity Insights provide the building blocks for converged connectivity and edge computing orchestration. Integrated into a network application, these network APIs in concern can deliver an optimized, low-latency edge computing service across a pan-operator (and pan-cloud service provider?) pool of edge computing infrastructure and differentiated connectivity.
The possibilities merely begin there.
This could be a good thing because operators have generally proven slow to modernize their networks much less widely deploy 5G standalone networks, with some notable exceptions. The good news is that the network API opportunity is more than just differentiated connectivity.
Informational network APIs, present low hanging fruit that could open up high-value channels of monetization for operators. The early foray into fraud prevention seems organic and supportive of this thesis. The hope would be that as operators witness proof of monetization and market scale, they will become more inclined to more aggressively and quickly invest in the modernization of their networks and operations.
On the other hand, markets with mature 5G operators will be able to leverage network APIs that deliver differentiated connectivity. This might take some time especially given the many technical dependencies and reliance on the lowest common denominator of network capability among operators in a market.
The vision is bold and will take time
There is no doubt that the Aduna vision, which mirrors that of the Open Gateway Initiative, is bold. Its introduction seems timely. Many of the pieces of the puzzle are known and on the table. The trick will be getting them to fall in place and fit. There is little doubt that the task at hand will be challenging and will take time given the many parts, dependencies, and a daunting gap in awareness that needs to be bridged.
In regard to Aduna, there are still many open questions that await answering as the venture is sanctioned and the details of its governance, organization, operations, commercials, and financials become public. Establishing the Aduna exchange will be an ongoing exercise in astute design, adaptation, and investment guided by brutal practicality afforded with patience.
For the moment, Ericsson and its Aduna partners will be pushing a string to create a market for network APIs as a nascent ecosystem goes through the process of discovering value in the network capabilities of today and tomorrow.
A bright spot in our research on this topic of network API economy-making is the revelation that the network API opportunity is broader and deeper than it has been represented by Ericsson and the industry as a whole. Informational network APIs present a channel for the industry to expand the frontier of opportunity and the end markets for network-aware business applications as the industry awaits the mainstream transition toward 5G standalone networks capable of delivering differentiated connectivity.
It turns out there is a horse in front of this cart.
