Cause for celebration the week after Ericsson plus 11 of the world’s biggest operator groups launched a global API company and CAMARA issued its first major API release
Juniper Research expects operators’ global revenue from telecom APIs to grow from $50.9 billion (€45.75 billion) in 2024, more than $111 billion in 2027 and $169.5 billion in 2029 – a CAGR of 213% over five years.
Juniper’s new report, Global Telecommunications API Market 2024-2029, predicts that communications services, such as rich media messaging and conversational AI, will represent 32% of operators’ revenue from APIs by 2027.
Communications APIs provide connections between operator networks and external applications, allowing third-party developers to integrate operators’ communication services into their applications.
Perfect opportunity
The report’s author, Molly Gatford notes, “With the rise of Over the Top (OTT) messaging and undetected flash calling, operators’ positions in the mobile messaging space, and revenue, is under threat despite owning the networks this traffic is sent over. Communications APIs represent a perfect opportunity for operators to maintain traffic termination revenue as demand for SMS declines.”
Juniper said operators must capitalise on the growth of rich media messaging by supporting communications APIs and offering more comprehensive messaging campaign management tools suited to RCS business messaging. These tools must include number verification for user identification and the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) for conversational AI capabilities.
API frameworks, such as the Open Gateway and CAMARA, provide “the ideal platform for operators to expose these communications APIs to enterprises and increase the value proposition of RCS for mobile messaging,” according to the press release.
It cautioned, “to maximise the reach of these APIs, operators must look to develop their own API platforms that enable easy integration of these APIs into third-party enterprise platforms”.
Good timing
Last week América Móvil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Reliance Jio, Singtel, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile, Verizon and Vodafone formed a commercial venture with Ericsson to capitalise on APIs, primarily to promote new ways of charging for network-based services by bundling them with third-parties’ products and services.
Right after that announcement, the Linux Foundation’s CAMARA launched its first major release of network APIs. The Meta-Release Fall24 contains 25 APIs across 13 sub projects “vetted for quality, consistency and stability through rigorous release management processes”
The community has committed to delivering updates twice a year so that operators can plan deployments in their networks. Also, API users know to expect the “latest and most stable versions from their network operators and API providers”.