GSMA OneAPI

Business rationale for cross-operator network chnology APIs Roadmap

Business rationale for cross-operator network APIs

February 2013

GSMA OneAPI

Business rationale for cross-operator network chnology APIs Roadmap

Evolution of customer behaviour

Just five years ago, the only applications on a typical mobile phone were: Voice calls Messaging (SMS and MMS) Address book Camera Some simple Java games At that time, mobile voice and messaging services were delivered almost exclusively by telecommunications operators. Since then, the mobile world has changed dramatically. Smartphones have become more and more dominant. Today, people use their smartphones for a huge variety of different services, many delivered by third-party app developers and web services providers. Average Time Spent on Various Mobile Functions, 1/11

10 minutes (12%) Web/Web Apps

27 minutes (32%) Telephony Phone Skype Messages

40 minutes (47%) All Other Maps Games Social Networking Utilities More New Activity

7 minutes (9%) Mail App

Source: Kleiner, Perkins, Caueld, Byers: Top 10 Mobile Internet Treands, Oct. 2011 (www.kpcb.com)

As third-party apps and services have gained traction, the original core apps of a mobile phone, underpinned by classical telecommunication services, have seen a relative decrease in relevance and usage.

February 2013

GSMA OneAPI

Business rationale for cross-operator network chnology APIs Roadmap

Opportunity for operators

However, the changes in the mobile landscape also offer significant opportunities for operators: Many of these third-party apps/web services make use of capabilities which could be delivered by operators, such as: - Messaging in social networking apps - - Chat and voice communication in multiplayer online games, Voice and video communication within enterprise collaboration and customer care apps

Third party apps / web services can also make use of other mobile operator capabilities, such as: - Adding payments / charges to a subscribers mobile telephony bill, in line with the business model for the third-party app / web service - Using operators identity and privacy capabilities to authenticate customers and provision their attributes, enabling the personalization of a service. This approach removes the need for customers to register and/or log-in to different services in different ways

As providers of key services to third party app developers and web service providers, the operators would become an important part of the apps value chain. This is a win-win situation for all participants: Depending on the chosen business model, which will depend on market environment and strategy, the benet for mobile operators could be twofold: - Increased relevance and usage of retail operator services among customers, benetting the operators retail business - Incremental wholesale revenues

Developers of third party apps / web services can: - Enrich their applications with high-quality operator capabilities - - Enhance the user-experience and lower the hurdle for customers to use their app, for example, by leveraging operators authentication capabilities. Implement a business model for their app by using operators payment and identity capabilities.

Customers benet from the improved user experience, the trustworthiness of operator capabilities and from greater convenience as they are already using the operator-provided services

Operator capability User experience improve Messaging (SMS, MMS) Voice calls RCS (IP messaging, video share, file share) Payment / charge to mobile bill Customer authentication Customer profile attributes Location X X X X

Application impact Enriched functionality X X X X X X X Business model enabling

February 2013

own client for PC, Android, iOS and Web access

GSMA OneAPI

Business rationale for cross-operator network chnology APIs Roadmap

How to tap into the potential

Network APIs are the glue between third party software-based apps / web services and core operator services. They enable operators to provide a software interface to the capabilities in their networks and IT systems, which can then be integrated by a third-party software developer into their apps / web services running on a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop or in the cloud.
Case study:
Operator capability Application impact

User experience Enriched Business model improve functionality enabling Many Internet players have already adopted the concept of APIs. And, for many of them, it is a major success factor.

A good example is Dropbox, a provider of cloud-based storage. The storage service is available via Dropboxs own Messaging (SMS, MMS) X software clients for various types of devices (such as smartphones, tablets and PCs), which enables consumers to Voice calls X can integrate its storage upload and download les. Dropbox also provides APIs to third parties via which they capability into their apps, such as: RCS (IP messaging, video X Viewers for vaious types of document formats (pictures, ofce documents, PDF, music, video) Backup services Ofce suites
Location Payment / charge to mobile bill X X X X X X X X Customer authentication Customer profile attributes share, file share)

Task managers

Many customers subscribe to the Dropbox cloud storage service, rather than to one of the many other comparable services, because of Dropboxs link to the applications they want to use.

own client for PC, Android, iOS and Web access

Cloud storage

APIs for 3rd party apps

Doc viewer Task manager GPS logger

Balance book Music player Office suite

Backup Voice messaging Doc viewer

Customer

Source: GSMA. All brands and trademarks remain the property of their owners.

The challenge cross-operator reach

Third party providers of apps and web services, which could potentially benefit from operators capabilities, typically market their services to consumers regardless of which operator they have a contract with. These providers are reluctant to leverage operator capabilities, if only a subset of their customers (only those who subscribe to the right network operator) can benefit. In some cases, a certain operator capability is available from multiple operators, but in a heterogeneous way, meaning many app and web developers are not able to cope with the resulting complexity. Hence, mobile operators need to work together to provide an attractive joint cross-operator network API proposition to third parties.

February 2013

GSMA OneAPI

Business rationale for cross-operator network chnology APIs Roadmap

The GSMAs offering the OneAPI Exchange

The GSMA has developed and implemented the GSMA OneAPI Exchange solution for the operator community to expose network APIs to third party apps / web services as a joint homogeneous proposition, freeing developers from the complexity of dealing with many operators in a heterogeneous way. This development is being driven and facilitated by partners with tremendous experience in this field: AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, Vodafone and a leading-edge technology partner: Apigee. The GSMA OneAPI Exchange facilitates operators to: Expose network APIs on their own, but benetting from shared components, business processes, and implementation / go to market approach, thereby streamlining the process or on-top of this: Team-up with other operators to expose certain network APIs for a regional cross-operator proposition or even: Become part of the overall global operator community to expose cross-operator network APIs, which are demanded by global app and web service developers with cross-operator reach The architecture which the GSMA has developed and implemented for this purpose enables operators to choose between three different options to participate and on-board, depending on their individual pre-requisites, strategies and market environments: Utilize their own developer program and expose a standardized cross-operator API Operators run their own developer programme (developer portal, API exposure gateway, developer settlement) on which they expose a OneAPI-standardized API, which plugs into the federation provided by the GSMA OneAPI Exchange. For all business processes, such as federation of developer registration and API subscription, reporting and settlement, operators interface with the respective GSMA OneAPI Exchange services. Utilize their own developer program and expose a custom API In cases where operators have already launched an API for a certain capability, they can mediate this API on the backend into the GSMA OneAPI standardized API, which then federates the API for cross-operator reach. Alternatively, they can outsource the mediation to the GSMA OneAPI Exchanges mediation capabilities. Developers are served through the operators own developer platform and can use the custom operator API for cross-operator reach. Leveraging the GSMA OneAPI outsourced operator services Operators who do not run their own developer programmes and for which implementing all the required components does not make sense from a cost and/or timing perspective, just need to expose a raw API. The GSMA OneAPI outsourced operator services can provide these operators with a developer portal and an API mediation function to the standardized API, together with developer and inter-operator settlement. The key characteristics of the GSMA OneAPI Exchange are: The business relationship is directly between developers and operators the GSMA acts as an enabler Operators can serve developers through their existing developer programmes The GSMA Exchange includes GSMAs OneAPI gateway as one element of the overall solution, which provides already live cross-operator network API services for the Canadian market, in cooperation with GSMAs technology partners TNS and Aepona More details on these options and the federated architecture of the GSMA OneAPI Exchange can be found in the GSMA OneAPI white paper GSMA One API Exchange Architecture for cross-operator Network APIs.
February 2013

GSMA OneAPI

chnology Roadmap Business rationale for cross-operator network APIs

GSMA Head Ofce Seventh Floor, 5 New Street Square, New Fetter Lane, London EC4A 3BF UK Tel: +44 (0)207 356 0600 oneapi@gsma.com www.gsma.com GSMA February 2013
February 2013