Exposure of network APIs was a strong theme once again at this year’s MWC Barcelona, with operators from across the globe making headway in their aims to raise revenue from providing access to the interfaces to enterprises and developers.
Orange is one of the operators at the forefront of this drive and a founding member of the company dubbed API supergroup Aduna.
The France-based group has formed a standalone unit dedicated to go-to-market activities related to network APIs.
At a media briefing at MWC, the head of the Orange LiveNet unit and director of network APIs Otilia Anton (pictured, left) was joined by group CTO and EVP of innovation networks Laurent Leboucher (pictured, right) to discuss its ambitions and strategy to grasp the API opportunity.
Leboucher highlighted its first batch of APIs were already available in France and Spain, with other European markets following “very soon”, adding “we started with the APIs that are easy to expose because there is not so much investment needed on the network side”.
Initial use cases are around identity and know your customer (KYC) applications.
“This year we will expose more network centric APIs with geolocation, network density and also quality on demand,” he added.
Anton explained expanding the drive into markets including Belgium and Poland is “very important, as it is starting to build critical mass”.
She noted its work with cross-operator entity Aduna had helped “identify commercial grade answers to those types of problems not addressed properly in the past [as] each operator had its own approach”.
Orange was also an early contributor to the CAMARA project and the GSMA’s Open Gateway drive, with the aim of ensuring network APIs happen “in a simple way”.
Anton highlighted the “lean” unit she runs brings together skills from other areas of the group including B2B, wholesale and the individual operating units, with an aim of achieving an “end-to-end approach”.
The unit’s ambition for this year is to scale the APIs already available alongside developing more advanced user experiences.
Getting started
Anton noted the first APIs to be exposed around identity and anti-fraud were chosen as “that’s where we had the first set of skills in the company”.
“Today we have options like KYC match, device swap and we’re looking into more advanced additional APIs in these suites”.
She indicated it is also “deeply keen” on enabling use cases taking advantage of standalone (SA) 5G including “quality on demand” and “location capabilities”, highlighting an aim for a “full network-as-a-service”.
At the end of the day we want to tap into the capabilities of 5G SA, AI and cloud native applications
Otilia Anton, director of network APIs Orange
Anton added “some of the APIs may be quicker to market because they are IT or CRM upgrades, while some that are deeply linked on the network data and network functions may require a bit more work”.
MEA
Orange also has significant operations across several countries in the Middle East and Africa (MEA), a region the company also has an API plan for.
“We will take an iterative approach as we had in Europe” Anton explained, noting it would first identify “core markets and then scale from there”.
Citing the benefit of engagement with developers and enterprise to identify specific opportunities, she added “in that area we believe that identity and anti-fraud is a place to start, because at Orange we have extensive experience with Orange Money and mobile payments”.
Orange is currently also engaging with peers in the MEA region to “identify the best areas to start”.
Collaboration
The executives indicated a vital part of the drive to monetise network APIs is engagement with developers, enterprises, systems integrators, and the wider technology and telecommunications ecosystems.
Along with developers, “we’re addressing enterprise stakeholders, product managers, business managers and CTOs”, Anton stated. “It’s about the co-development of those valuable use cases. In the end they need to be very efficient for developers as they are the ones who are integrating it”.
Leboucher added “what will also be important is to co-locate our network APIs with other APIs coming from other providers, depending on the use case”.
“Our APIs must not be isolated and we must also create a go-to-market so they are exposed at the right place,” he explained, highlighting the potential benefit of availability in locations such as hyperscalers’ marketplaces or software player SAP’s platform.
As is a frequent theme with targeting products at enterprise, Anton pointed to the importance of having a “co-development approach”, whether through the enterprises directly or integrators.
“Orange has its own integrating capability, but we’re open to work with integrators like SAP because we believe they can play a key role,” she added.
“Because they don’t just see one digital transformation project, but hundreds or thousands and that’s how we get a sense of what are the scalable use cases”.
Comments