Yes, writing REST APIs is a fairly standard approach and can be used for multiple carrier implementations. The trick is to decide on how deep the APIs communicate to the backend systems, what infomation to expose, how to secure and how to monitor and control the network gateway infrastructure and perform the necessary analyics. And of course, monitize. The interesting part besides SMS and Location apps, by exposing APIs, telecom operators can allow real innovation by developers unforeseen by the operators or equipment vendors.
In addition to scaling across networks, are there or could there be settlements that are associated with the APIs that would facilitate internetworking across carriers and allow for the application layers to better amortized infrastructure costs and development?
Overall, mobile carrier services are overpriced because of inefficient settlements (or lack thereof entirely in the case of bill and keep) and vertically integrated (not invented here) mindsets.
Until the carrier model goes "horizontal" with settlements in the control layers the service providers will continue to lose share to the application and OS ecosystems and private networks.
Are these standardization efforts paying off? If a developer uses one set of APIs to write programs for/create services on AT&T's network, can it do the same on Vodafone's?
The blogs and comments are the opinions only of the writers and do not reflect the views of Light Reading. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
To save this item to your list of favorite Light Reading content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
