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.

AI in India: Why Airtel–Perplexity and Jio–Gemini Offer Free Premium Access

Why Airtel–Perplexity and Jio–Gemini Offer Free Premium Access
A cascade of offers from OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity—amplified by Airtel and Reliance Jio—signals a deliberate push to convert India’s scale into durable AI usage, data, and future revenue. With more than 900 million internet users, rock-bottom mobile data prices, and a young, mobile-first population, India offers the world’s deepest top-of-funnel for AI adoption. Giving away premium access—such as a year of ChatGPT’s low-cost “Go” tier, Jio’s bundling of Gemini, or Airtel’s tie-up with Perplexity Pro—maximizes trial, habituation, and data collection across diverse languages and contexts. Even a low single-digit conversion rate translates into millions of subscribers, while non-converters still contribute valuable signals that improve models.

OECD broadband: fibre and 5G drive digital transformation

OECD broadband: fibre and 5G drive digital transformation
OECD data shows fixed and mobile broadband have shifted from build-out to scale-up, with fibre and 5G underpinning a new phase of digital infrastructure. Fixed broadband penetration across the OECD rose to 36.5 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants by end-2024, up from 32 in 2019, while the fibre share of fixed lines jumped from 28 percent to 47 percent over the same period. Gigabit-tier offers (≥1 Gbps) moved from 4 percent of subscriptions in 2019 to 19 percent in 2024, signaling both wider availability and growing appetite for very high throughput. On mobile, average monthly data consumption per subscription increased 2.5x—from 6 GB at end-2019 to 15 GB in 2024, aligned with more video, cloud, and AI-assisted applications shifting to handhelds and connected devices.

GSMA Open Gateway: Dutch Telcos Launch CAMARA Fraud APIs

GSMA Open Gateway: Dutch Telcos Launch CAMARA Fraud APIs
A coordinated launch in the Netherlands brings standardized, network-powered security APIs to market at national scale. KPN, Odido, and Vodafone Netherlands have jointly introduced a set of security services based on CAMARA, the open-source API framework hosted by the Linux Foundation and aligned with the GSMA Open Gateway program. Working with the Dutch COIN association, the operators are exposing harmonized, privacy-aware network signals that enterprises can use to strengthen authentication and reduce online fraud. The Dutch launch prioritizes identity-centric use cases. Number Verification allows apps to confirm that a user’s device and mobile number match the current session—often silently in the background—reducing one-time password SMS dependency.

CrowdStrike & NVIDIA: Open AI Agents at the Edge

CrowdStrike & NVIDIA: Open AI Agents at the Edge
CrowdStrike and NVIDIA are aligning open models, edge inference, and agentic tooling to push real-time, autonomous cyber defense into data centers, clouds, and MEC sites where telecom and enterprise workloads actually live. By pairing CrowdStrike’s Charlotte AI AgentWorks with NVIDIA’s Nemotron open models, NeMo Data Designer, NeMo Agent Toolkit, and NIM microservices, the partners aim to shrink detection-to-response windows from minutes to milliseconds, and to do so where latency is lowest—at the edge. The companies expanded their collaboration to deliver always-on, continuously learning AI agents that defend cloud, data center, and edge environments using open and enterprise-grade NVIDIA AI components integrated with CrowdStrike’s Agentic Security Platform.

TELUS Digital Takeover: AI CX and 5G Monetization

TELUS Digital Takeover: AI CX and 5G Monetization
TELUS has taken full ownership of TELUS Digital, a move designed to consolidate AI-powered customer experience, SaaS, and automation capabilities across its telecom, health, and agriculture businesses while unlocking material cost efficiencies. TELUS acquired all remaining TELUS Digital shares for US$4.50 per share, valuing the transaction at approximately US$539 million and issuing a small portion of TELUS common shares alongside cash to complete the deal; the entity will be delisted from the TSX and NYSE and cease public reporting. Management targets roughly US$150 million in annual efficiencies from automation, business simplification, and tighter cross-selling.

NEC buys CSG for $2.9B to scale SaaS BSS monetization

NEC buys CSG for $2.9B to scale SaaS BSS monetization
NEC is moving to scale its cloud and SaaS business support capabilities with a $2.9 billion acquisition of CSG Systems International, positioning Netcracker at the center of the combined telecom monetization play. CSG brings a sizable recurring-revenue portfolio in digital BSS, billing, charging, and customer engagement used by communications, cable, media, and digital service providers, complementing Netcracker’s OSS/BSS, orchestration, and service automation strengths. The all-cash deal values CSG at approximately $2.9 billion on an enterprise value basis and has unanimous board approval, with closing targeted for 2026 pending CSG shareholder approval and customary antitrust and other regulatory reviews.

Magic Leap and Google advance AI smart glasses with Android XR

Magic Leap and Google advance AI smart glasses with Android XR
A renewed, three-year collaboration between Magic Leap and Google signals a pragmatic path to AI-capable AR glasses that prioritize visual quality, comfort, and manufacturability. Magic Leap is pivoting from building end-user headsets to becoming an ecosystem partner, offering waveguides, optics, device services, and manufacturing know-how to companies pursuing glasses form factors. The companies are aligning around Android XR, positioning the prototype showcased on stage at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh as a reference for future designs. The prototype highlights advances in see-through clarity, low-power displays, and an industrial design that approximates everyday eyewear.

Ericsson and SAR bring 5G FRMCS to Saudi Rail

Ericsson and SAR bring 5G FRMCS to Saudi Rail
The partnership targets two fronts: mission-critical rail communications for operations and high-speed broadband for passengers. The scope includes deploying advanced 5G infrastructure, testing FRMCS-based use cases, and running a real-world trial on an existing SAR line to validate performance, integration, and safety requirements. An innovation and test lab will be established to accelerate solution validation, and SAR teams will be trained on FRMCS/5G rail technologies to build in-house capability. The partners will explore 5G Standalone capabilities for operational communications, including quality-of-service guarantees, redundancy, and resilience needed for rail. FRMCS-aligned services such as mission-critical push-to-talk/data/video (MCX), Railway Emergency Call, and secure staff communications will be validated for integration with signaling and control systems.

Snapchat Imagine AI Lens Goes Free in the US

Snapchat Imagine AI Lens Goes Free in the US
Snap has opened its first open-prompt AI image Lens, Imagine, to all U.S. users, signaling a new phase in mainstream generative experiences inside the camera. Imagine Lens lets users write a short prompt and instantly transform a selfie or create an image from scratch, then share it in chats, Stories, or off-platform. The capability was previously limited to Lens+ and Snapchat Platinum subscribers. Camera-native generative features at social scale change traffic patterns, compute placement, and safety obligations for platforms and networks. Provenance standards such as C2PA content credentials are becoming table stakes for enterprise integrations and advertiser trust.

ChatGPT Atlas: OpenAI’s AI Browser vs Google Chrome

ChatGPT Atlas: OpenAI’s AI Browser vs Google Chrome
OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Atlas, a MacOS AI browser built around its chatbot, positioning agentic browsing and LLM-native search as the next front in the browser wars. Atlas reframes the browser as a conversational interface. It removes the traditional address bar and orients the experience around ChatGPT, with natural language as the primary way to navigate, retrieve, and summarize information. The initial release targets Apple’s MacOS, with OpenAI emphasizing a paid “agent mode” that can autonomously search, read, and act on the user’s behalf using the live browsing context. Agent mode will be available to paying ChatGPT subscribers, extending OpenAI’s monetization beyond API usage and premium chatbot tiers.

Google Cloud Study: 52% Deploy AI Agents, Driving ROI

Google Cloud Study: 52% Deploy AI Agents, Driving ROI
Google Cloud’s 2025 ROI of AI study signals a step-change: AI agents are now in production at scale and delivering measurable business outcomes. The study, fielded with National Research Group across 24 countries, finds 52% of executives report their organizations already use AI agents—specialized models that can plan, reason, and take actions. Momentum is material: 39% say their company has launched more than ten agents. Executives also report faster delivery cycles, with over half moving use cases from idea to production within three to six months, up from last year. Generative AI investment continues to climb as technology costs fall.

Samsung Galaxy XR: AI-First Mixed Reality

Samsung Galaxy XR: AI-First Mixed Reality
Unlike metaverse-era headsets that leaned on entertainment and novelty, Galaxy XR makes Google’s Gemini the front door to the interface. In demos, Gemini orchestrated windows in a spatial workspace, answered context-aware questions, and invoked creative tools like Veo for AI-generated video. That tight AI integration is the strategic wedge: Samsung and Google position XR as a bridge to slim, everyday AI glasses developed with eyewear brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. The message to developers and enterprises is clear—design for multimodal AI agents first; the form factor will shrink later.

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.

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