Telecom trade association TM Forum has added three new APIs to its suite of Open APIs. They are for event management, sales management and process.

In addition, 17 other Open APIs, developed and contributed largely by Orange and Amdocs, have been enhanced. These 17 Open APIs aim to improve the functionality for management of customer experience, products and services, and relationships with partners and suppliers.

Ludovic Robert, IT Senior Architect, Orange, said, “These new and updated APIs will be used to support order activation sub-processes such as customer management, quote management, offer qualification and product ordering, but also process flow to strengthen alignment with the Forum’s Open Digital Architecture principles.” 

He added, “These functions are essential in ensuring service providers can not only transform their network IT for the digital world but also deliver new digital services.”

Used by 53 telcos

TM Forum now offers 57 REST-based Open APIs which it says are used by more than 9,000 software developers in 1,300 companies.

George Glass, Vice President, Architecture and APIs, TM Forum, said, “The Open API Collaboration team’s focus has been on the continued improvement and alignment of our APIs to ensure that they are easier to use and work consistently with each other.”

To help companies self-assess their conformance to the Open APIs, the Forum offers Open API Conformance Certification. It recently published a pilot API adoption assessment report for service providers and vendors to help them understand their progress in implementing TM Forum Open APIs relative to their peers.

TM Forum launched its Open API programme in May 2016. At the time, the Forum said it aimed to have 200 service providers on board by 2018.

Today, 53 telecom companies have signed the Forum’s Open API Manifesto, vowing to use the Open APIs in product applications and collaborate on future development and growth. In May, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Salesforce and China Telecom signed the manifesto. This month, Chunghwa Telecom added their name to the list.