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The initiative now is now supported by 47 operators worldwide, many of which vaunted their API success stories at this year’s MWC
The GSMA launched their Open Gateway initiative – which seeks to create a unified Application Programming Interface (API) development platform for telcos and app developers – at last year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC).
At the time, GSMA director general Mats Granryd hailed the project as a turning point for the industry’s ability to deliver digital services, allowing app developers to create new mobile experiences more quickly and deploy them seamlessly across numerous operator networks.
Now, one year on at MWC 2024, the project continues to grow steadily, with more operators and developer partners joining the fold and demonstrating early success.
Open Gateway is now supported by 47 operator groups worldwide, representing over 65% of global mobile connections, more than doubling the 21 operator partners the project had at launch last year.
Notably, in six national markets – Brazil, Germany, Spain, Indonesia, South Africa, and Sri Lanka – all the local operators are participating in the Open Gateway projects, meaning developers need only a single API key to access network capabilities of every telco within the country.
“Our collective job for 2024 is to nurture and grow this opportunity and provide ubiquitous access to enterprise developers and cloud providers, so they can do what they do best, which is launch game changing new services that can maximise the benefits of 5G networks,” said Granryd.
Some of these new services are already hitting the market, including APIs tackling online fraud, quality-on-demand, and geolocation services.
In total, 94 APIs are commercially available to enterprise developers in 21 markets.
Open Gateway also provides a major opportunity for the hyperscalers, with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft all participating in numerous related projects.
Ishwar Parulkar, AWS’s chief technologist for telecom and edge cloud, called the progress of the Open Gateway project over the last year had been “very encouraging”, saying that alignment between hyperscalers and telcos would be crucial to their combined commercial success.
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