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The new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will see application developers get greater access to Telstra’s network capabilities
This week, Australian telco Telstra has signed a new MoU with API specialist Vonage, now a part of Ericsson, that will see its network APIs added to Vonage’s platform.
The non-exclusive agreement, the partners say, will help them to increase collaboration on API development and open a clear pathway for developers to gain better access to Telstra’s network functionality.
Telstra currently offers developers access to eight APIs, including messaging, tracking and monitoring, and network telemetry, all of which will now be added to the Vonage platform. The partners will also work together to develop new APIs, such as those related to network slicing, edge computing, fraud and spam protections, and network analytical insights.
“We see this partnership with Vonage as one of a variety of ways we can evolve and build a thriving ecosystem around our network product,” said Kim Krogh Anderson, Telstra’s Group Executive for Product and Technology. “Opening up new avenues for connectivity to be consumed will lead to new monetisation opportunities – in the same way hyperscalers monetise compute on their cloud as a platform. This is just one of the ways we’re addressing the Business-to-Business (B2B2X) developer market opportunity.”
APIs have become a major focus for the telecoms industry in recent years, being viewed an integral step towards network monetisation and the development of valuable new services. Perhaps the best example of this is the GSMA’s Open Gateway project, which aims to create a unified telco API platform that will allow developers to roll out new services seamlessly across any participating telco network worldwide.
According to the GSMA, operators accounting for 65% of all mobile traffic worldwide have already signed up to the initiative.
But while opening up the networks to better allow developers to play with their capabilities is clearly appealing to the operators, real monetisation opportunities are relatively few and far between.
Ericsson bet big on APIs when it acquired Vonage back in 2021 for $6.2 billion, saying that unlocking networks for developers would be at the core of their company’s growth strategy. Two years later, however, and the deal has failed to deliver the growth promised by Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm, with Ericsson forced to write off $2.9 billion of Vonage’s value last year.
Nonetheless, Vonage has been gaining momentum steadily of late, having signed similar deals with the likes of Verizon and Deutsche Telekom in recent months. APIs may not have been the rapid money-spinner that Ericsson had hoped for, but they will certainly play a major role in the telco ecosystem’s future evolution.
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