MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS — The GSMA has announced the launch of a commercial pilot in Canada as part of its OneAPI initiative. The association will work with mobile operators Bell Mobility, Rogers Communications and TELUS to demonstrate the viability and benefits of providing developers with standardized application programming interfaces (APIs) for mobile networks.
Through the OneAPI initiative, the GSMA is promoting the adoption of a common, lightweight and Web-friendly set of APIs to provide application developers with easy access to mobile operator network capabilities. The pilot in Canada marks the first time developers are able to gain commercial access to the network assets of multiple operators, from a single gateway, in a consistent and simple way using OneAPI.
“A common set of APIs will benefit the entire mobile industry by making it much more attractive for developers to create innovative applications and services by utilizing the capabilities and information provided by operators about their networks,” said Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer at the GSMA. “Our OneAPI initiative will help eliminate fragmentation and aid the growth of the mobile applications ecosystem, resulting in a larger addressable market, encouraging innovation, enhancing the customer experience and creating new revenue opportunities for mobile operators and developers alike.”
The OneAPI initiative initially focuses on exposing mobile network capabilities such as payment, messaging and location. These capabilities are largely underexploited by Web-centric developers because each operator uses different APIs to expose their network assets, making it difficult for developers to create applications that work seamlessly across different networks. Utilising a common set of network APIs and tapping into these capabilities will enable developers and enterprises deploying applications to provide a much richer customer experience.
For the pilot, the GSMA is collaborating with Aepona, which is providing its Universal Service Platform (USP) together with managed services to connect to the three operators in a hosted environment. The Canadian pilot will also use the GSMA’s number translation service, PathFinder, to determine which operator to send the OneAPI call to while allowing for number portability.
The results of the Canadian pilot will be analyzed and used as a model for further pilots around the world over the coming year.
