API

Network APIs expose telecom capabilities — such as quality of service, location, device status, and authentication — to developers and enterprises through standardized programmable interfaces. Industry initiatives including GSMA Open Gateway and the CAMARA project aim to make these capabilities consistent across operators, turning the network into a platform that applications can call directly. For operators, APIs represent a route to revenue beyond connectivity; for enterprises and developers, they offer programmable access to network features once locked inside carrier systems. Standards bodies including TM Forum and 3GPP continue to shape how these interfaces are defined and monetized. This channel tracks network API standards, operator and hyperscaler partnerships, monetization models, and real deployments, with analysis of where programmable networks are gaining commercial traction and where adoption still lags behind the ambition.

5G Growth Soars: Ericsson Predicts Over 5 Billion Subscriptions by 2029

5G and LTE Private Network
This article delves into the recent Ericsson Mobility Report, highlighting the robust growth of 5G technology with predictions of over 5.3 billion subscriptions by 2029 and a significant increase in average data usage per smartphone.

AWS Re: Invent Key Highlights

Whether you're a novice or an expert in cloud computing, the AWS Re: Invent conference offers insightful and useful knowledge. The conference is a event for anybody wishing to stay up to date on the newest trends and advancements in cloud computing, with its focus on innovation, networking, and education.

5G in Manufacturing: Navigating the Evolution and Impact of Advanced Connectivity

5G in Manufacturing: Navigating the Evolution and Impact of Advanced Connectivity
Explore the transformative role of 5G in manufacturing, from integration challenges to future trends, and how it's reshaping industry operations.

UK government doles out £36 million to 5G Innovation Regions

5G
Ten areas in the UK, stretching from Glasgow to the West Midlands, will reap the advantages of a £36 million investment designed to accelerate innovation powered by 5G technology.

Orange Unveils Satellite Internet for All of France: Superfast Broadband Anywhere You Are

Orange Unveils Satellite Internet for All of France
Explore the Orange Satellite Internet, powered by Nordnet. This service ensures high-speed broadband access across all of France, bridging the digital divide with state-of-the-art satellite technology.

Marlink and Intellian Technologies Enter into a Five-Year Strategic Collaboration Agreement

Marlink and Intellian Technologies Enter into a Five-Year Strategic Collaboration Agreement
Intellian Technologies and Marlink have extended their strategic alliance for an additional five year. Intellian is set to persist in providing Marlink's end users with hybrid connectivity terminals. This collaboration will encompass the co-development of products for hybrid connectivity, utilizing Geostationary Orbit (GEO), Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO), and Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) networks. Additionally, Marlink will maintain access to necessary capacity.

How satellite-powered Smart-IoT will speed the connected vehicles revolution | E-Space

How satellite-powered Smart-IoT will speed the connected vehicles revolution | E-Space
The rise of smart vehicles, projected to surpass 470 million connected cars by 2025, is rapidly transforming the transportation landscape. Enabled by IoT, these vehicles offer real-time communication with infrastructure, on-the-go diagnostics, and advanced safety features. Yet, challenges like patchy cellular network coverage persist. From facilitating autonomous driving and vehicle-to-vehicle communication to enhancing safety and sustainability, satellite-powered IoT is set to accelerate the connected vehicles revolution, optimizing transportation efficiency and environmental impact.

Unleashing the Power of 5G and Satellite | Meeting the Demands of a Connected World

Unleashing the Power of 5G and Satellite | Meeting the Demands of a Connected World
The age of connectivity we live in is marked by an explosion in smart devices and data consumption, underpinned by rapid urbanization and technological innovations. This necessitates superior communication infrastructure, especially with the rise of 4K/8K video streaming, online gaming, VR/AR, and shifts in work culture prompted by COVID-19. Despite 4G/LTE networks serving us till now, they lack in terms of speed and latency for present needs. Ensuring low-latency is paramount for real-time communications, particularly in sectors like autonomous vehicles, healthcare, and finance. Integrating terrestrial networks (like 5G) with non-terrestrial networks (like satellites) presents a solution, but is challenged by technical, regulatory, and economic factors. Future advancements in satellite communication, including improved payloads and next-gen constellations, look promising. The synergy between 5G and satellite networks will shape the future of global connectivity.

MediaMobil to leverage Eutelsat Group capacity to deliver global maritime connectivity

MediaMobil to leverage Eutelsat Group capacity to deliver global maritime connectivity
Eutelsat Communications has been selected by MediaMobi to provide maritime connectivity to hundreds of ships and off-shore vessels around the globe. MediaMobil will benefit from Eutelsat ADVANCE solution for facilitating long-distance connectivity and an innovative satellite network-as-a-service managed experience.

Fixed-Wireless Access (FWA): Powering 5G’s Expansion

Fixed-Wireless Access (FWA): Powering 5G's Expansion
Discover the pivotal role of Fixed-Wireless Access (FWA) in the expansion of 5G technology. This article sheds light on FWA's contribution to enhancing broadband reach and capabilities, highlighting its rapid deployment and affordability.

Achieving Technology Excellence in Smaller Countries – How the Baltics Can Take the Lead in Europe’s Innovation Agenda

5G Techritory Podcasts
In this session, we explored the unique opportunities and strategies that smaller countries, specifically the Baltic states, can leverage to become frontrunners in Europe’s innovation landscape. Our esteemed panelists, comprising industry leaders, policymakers, and innovators, shared their insights on building thriving technology ecosystems, fostering entrepreneurship, attracting investment, and nurturing talent in smaller countries.

Beyond x86: Specialty Silicon in Telecom

Appledore Podcast
Didn't Telecom already decide that the answer was all software on commodity hardware? Apparently not...

Frequently Asked Questions

What is GSMA Open Gateway, and why was it created?
GSMA Open Gateway is an industry-wide initiative, backed by the GSMA, the trade body representing mobile operators globally, and dozens of major carriers, designed to standardize network APIs across operators and countries. Before this initiative, a company wanting to use a SIM swap detection API to prevent account-takeover fraud would typically need separate technical integrations and commercial agreements with every carrier in every market it operated in, an approach that didn’t scale well for global digital businesses like banks or ride-sharing platforms. Open Gateway defines a common technical specification for these APIs so a single integration works consistently across participating operators worldwide, dramatically reducing the engineering and business development overhead for any company wanting to build services on top of carrier network data.
Why do telecom companies want to expose network APIs to outside developers?
Exposing network APIs gives carriers a new revenue stream that doesn’t depend on selling more raw data or voice minutes, an increasingly commoditized, low-margin business. Instead, operators can charge for premium, differentiated capabilities, like verified caller identity for fraud prevention, real-time network quality guarantees for a specific application, or device location data for logistics and delivery tracking, turning the network itself into a monetizable platform. This mirrors a broader strategic shift across the industry, often summarized as moving from selling bandwidth to selling outcomes, where operators position themselves as infrastructure partners for other industries’ digital products rather than purely as connectivity providers competing on price. It also opens partnerships with software companies that wouldn’t otherwise have a direct commercial relationship with an operator at all.
What are some real-world examples of telecom network APIs in use today?
Some of the most established use cases include number verification, used heavily by banking and fintech apps to confirm a user genuinely controls the phone number tied to their account before allowing a transaction; SIM swap detection, which flags when a phone number has recently been transferred to a new SIM, a common signal of an account-takeover attempt; and location APIs, used by logistics and delivery companies for real-time tracking, or by other services for geofencing-based features. Newer, more specialized examples are emerging too, including quality-on-demand APIs that let an application request guaranteed network performance for a specific session, useful for video calls or cloud gaming, effectively giving developers programmatic access to capabilities like network slicing without negotiating a direct deal with the underlying carrier.
How do network APIs relate to network slicing and monetization?
Network slicing creates the actual underlying capability, a dedicated, performance-guaranteed virtual network for a specific purpose, while network APIs are often the mechanism by which a third-party developer actually requests and uses that capability programmatically, without needing to understand or manage the underlying slicing infrastructure directly. A quality-on-demand API, for example, might let a video conferencing app request guaranteed low latency for an important call, with that request fulfilled behind the scenes by the operator’s slicing infrastructure. This pairing is central to how operators are trying to monetize their 5G Standalone investments: slicing creates differentiated network capabilities, and APIs are the commercial and technical interface that makes those capabilities accessible and billable to outside developers.
What’s stopping network APIs from being adopted faster?
Adoption has been slower than initial industry enthusiasm suggested, for a few recurring reasons. Developers building global products need consistent behavior across operators and countries, and while standardization initiatives like Open Gateway aim to solve this, achieving true consistency across dozens of carriers, each with their own legacy systems and commercial priorities, takes time. There’s also a chicken-and-egg dynamic: developers are hesitant to build products around APIs that aren’t yet universally available, while operators are cautious about investing heavily in API infrastructure without proven developer demand. Pricing adds another layer of friction, since operators are still experimenting with how to price access in a way that’s attractive to developers while still generating meaningful revenue relative to infrastructure cost.
Who are the typical customers building on top of telecom network APIs?
Customers span a range of industries, but financial services and fraud prevention have been the earliest and most consistent adopters, using number verification and SIM swap detection to reduce account-takeover and transaction fraud. Logistics, delivery, and ride-sharing companies are major users of location-based APIs for real-time tracking and route optimization. Gaming and entertainment companies are increasingly interested in quality-on-demand APIs to guarantee performance for latency-sensitive applications like cloud gaming. Beyond individual companies, aggregator platforms have emerged specifically to combine APIs from multiple operators into a single access point, letting developers integrate once and reach users across many carriers and countries without managing separate relationships with each one.
Are network APIs secure, and who controls access to sensitive data like location?
Security and access control are central design considerations for network APIs, given the sensitive nature of data like location or SIM status. Access is generally tightly controlled through authentication and authorization systems, and most operators only expose specific, limited capabilities through these APIs rather than raw access to underlying network or subscriber data. Consent mechanisms are also typically built in, particularly for anything involving an individual’s location or personal data, often requiring an explicit user opt-in before that data can be shared with a third-party application. This remains an evolving area, and as more operators expose more capabilities through these interfaces, regulators and privacy advocates are paying closer attention to how consent is obtained across different countries with different privacy law standards.

Your Brand. Our Intelligence Tools.

Capture leads at the point of evaluation. Talk to Us →

Sponsored by Palo Alto Networks
⚡ Utilities ⏱ 8 min ✓ Free
This tool is built and hosted by TeckNexus.
Launch Tool →
How Secure AI-Enabled Private Mobile Networks Transform Utility Operations
How Secure AI-Enabled Private Mobile Networks Transform Utility Operations
Whitepaper
This whitepaper explains how utilities can use secure AI-enabled private mobile networks to modernize operations, support distributed intelligence, improve resilience, and strengthen cybersecurity across critical infrastructure. It covers AI applications, private network advantages, zero trust principles, multilayered security architecture, and governance considerations for AI-ready utility environments....
The Evolution of Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN)
Whitepaper
Non-terrestrial networks are rapidly evolving from experimental satellite systems into an increasingly important part of the global 5G connectivity landscape. This eBook, developed by Radisys in collaboration with TeckNexus, explores how 3GPP standardization, satellite architecture innovation, and software-driven network design are reshaping NTN deployment models. It examines the transition from...
Private 5G Network Security: 4 Pillars for Securing Private 5G, LTE & CBRS
Private 5G Network Security: 4 Pillars for Securing Private 5G, LTE & CBRS
Whitepaper
Private cellular networks are transforming industrial operations, but securing private 5G, LTE, and CBRS infrastructure requires more than legacy IT/OT tools. This whitepaper by TeckNexus and sponsored by OneLayer outlines a 4-pillar framework to protect critical systems, offering clear guidance for evaluating security vendors, deploying zero trust, and integrating IT,...
Scroll to Top