A week in telecoms: Major telcos and Ericsson create network API joint venture

Twelve leading telecom operators worldwide and Ericsson have announced plans to create a joint venture company to sell network application programming interfaces (APIs).

The operators involved, which will own 50% of the new entity, are América Móvil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Reliance Jio, Singtel, Telefonica, Telstra, T-Mobile, Verizon and Vodafone. Ericsson will own the remaining 50% of the JV.

The move signals how serious some of the world’s largest operators are about pursuing the potential to generate revenue from their network capabilities. And it takes the industry Open Gateway initiative to a whole new commercial level.

The new company will combine network APIs, which is intended to create scale and reach by allowing applications to work on any network and making it easier for developers to create new applications.

The announcement stressed that the JV’s platform and partner ecosystem will be “open and non-discriminatory”, in keeping with the Open Gateway framework. It also called on other operators to join the endeavor. Three Sweden (Hi3G Access) could be next as it is mulling participation in the company.

The network APIs will be based on existing Linux Foundation CAMARA APIs and offered to developer platforms, including hyperscalers, Communications Platform as a Service providers, systems integrators and independent software vendors.

TM Forum's CTO, George Glass, welcomed the initiative.

“This is yet further proof of the importance and power of collaboration across the whole ecosystem,” said George Glass, CTO of TM Forum. “The achievement of Open Gateway is to turn network APIs into standardized products which can be sold to developer communities worldwide via channel partners’ platforms. TM Forum is working in close partnership with our Members to develop the Operate APIs which enable operators to monetize the use of these network APIs. This has been done in collaboration with GSMA and CAMARA, and with the same operators who have formed the new venture.

“Fragmentation has prevented API monetization initiatives from succeeding in the past, but with Open Gateway the whole industry has united around a common purpose, and everyone is playing their part, including the hyperscalers, operators and the industry organizations.”

Vonage, which is a subsidiary of Ericsson, and Google Cloud were named as partners of the new company.

“Most of the operators mentioned in the agreement are leading partners in our Open API program, using these APIs internally to simplify integration within their own IT and network environments," adds Glass.

Kuwait gears up for 5G-Advanced launch

Operators in Kuwait are preparing to launch 5G-Advanced (or 5.5G) services by December 2024 after the regulator CITRA indicated in August that spectrum frequencies will also be diverted from 3G to support 4G and 5G offerings.

According to local news site Al-Anba, operators are required to launch 5G-Advanced services on the same date, with services then activated on at least 500 sites by September 2025. The new services will make use of 2.6GHz and 2.3GHz frequencies, and the plan is to sunset 3G networks no later than June 2025.

Ooredoo, STC and Zain are the three main mobile network operators in Kuwait, and all three have been testing 5.5G services in recent months. Notably, Kuwait signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Huawei at MWC Barcelona in February, and indicated at the time that it intended to be a “pioneer” in 5.5G.

5G-Advanced is the next evolutionary step in 5G technology and is expected to support advanced applications with enhanced mobility and high reliability as well as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) that will improve network performance.

3GPP Release 18 is the first release to officially include 5G-Advanced and was “frozen” in June this year. The specifications are now available to 5G equipment vendors. The 3GPP has already begun work on Release 19 and currently hopes to finish that work by the end of 2025.

According to Ericsson, Release 19 promises to introduce a number of technological improvements to 5G-Advanced including boosting massive MIMO performance, further leveraging AI and ML technologies, and improving energy usage. The vendor also noted that Release 19 “will provide a bridge from 5G-Advanced to 6G,” with 6G specifications then further developed in Releases 20 and 21.

UK could reap £4bn in economic benefits from FWA - report

A report commissioned by the UK Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (UKWISPA) claims that fixed wireless access (FWA) technology could provide the nation with economic benefits worth up to £4 billion, of which £1 billion would come from savings and £3 billion generated from the provision of FWA services to rural households.

The report was carried out on behalf of the lobby group by Intelligens Consulting. According to David Burns, Chairman at UKWISPA, the study “highlights the huge role of FWA alongside fiber in achieving the UK’s ambitions to provide comprehensive access to gigabit broadband connectivity. Not only can rollout be accelerated, but both urban and rural locations can get their enhanced connectivity sooner, and at less cost.”

The report said that policymakers “must recognize the significant role of wireless technologies as part of the technology mix needed to support the government to deliver its gigabit ambition,” referring to the UK government’s Project Gigabit objectives to reach all but the very remotest areas by 2030.

Meanwhile, Ofcom said earlier this year that Hutchison 3G (Three UK) had requested “minor technical changes” to its 3.9GHz license to enable it to use 5G technology to improve and expand its 5G FWA offering. The regulator launched a consultation on the topic, and a statement is now pending.

Since then, Three UK has launched a 5G Outdoor Hub that works in tandem with the indoor Eero 6 WiFi router in order to provide 5G-based broadband connectivity.

As noted by telecoms analyst Luke Kehoe on LinkedIn, the “simplicity of the solution … represents a significant step forward for the wider 5G FWA market in materially improving the process of deploying externally-mounted CPE.”

EC report recommends M&A policy changes and more for telecoms

The European Commission published its highly anticipated report on The Future of European Competitiveness that revealed strategic ambitions for the telecoms sector.

Many telcos will be happy about some of the policy recommendations in the report, authored by Mario Draghi, a former Prime Minister of Italy and President of the European Central Bank. TelecomTV reported a helpful summary of the most interesting and relevant sections for the telecoms sector.

Among the highlights, the report calls for reducing “country-level” regulation in cases of market dominance abuse and relaxing rules to allow for more M&A in telecoms. “Facilitating consolidation in the telecoms sector is needed to deliver higher rates of investment in connectivity”, the report states.

It also appears that some variant of the controversial “fair share” concept is still on the agenda. As TelecomTV reported, “fair share” is not mentioned. However, this line stands out: “To increase the capacity of EU operators to invest in these technologies, it is recommended to support commercial investment sharing between network owners and Very Large Online Platforms that use EU data networks to a massive extent but do not contribute to financing them.”

The report’s recommendations come as the European Commission is about to start a new five-year term

The GSMA and Connect Europe (formerly ETNO) released a statement welcoming the report. The industry groups said they supported, in particular, the EC’s positions on mergers, less regulation, “better market balance with Big Tech” and harmonized spectrum licensing.

But it wasn’t well-received by everyone. Dean Bubley, founder and director of Disruptive Analysis, panned the report. “Overall, it’s pretty terrible,” he wrote on LinkedIn, giving it a mark of three out of ten and signing off his post with, “back to the drawing board.”

AT&T expands data automation deal with Unsupervised

In the latest example of how telcos are embracing AI and analytics, AT&T plans to equip more employees with automated data analysis tools through a new agreement with Unsupervised, an AI-powered automated analytics specialist. The operator decided to expand the deployment of Unsupervised after the company identified $100 million worth of opportunities from automating data analysis across the operator’s business.

By deploying Unsupervised’s AI Data Analysts platform in more parts of the organization, AT&T expects employees to gain faster insights from data.

Mark Austin, VP Data Science at AT&T, said in a statement: “We have embraced the AI revolution by developing advanced Generative AI tools like Ask AT&T and by working with providers of advanced AI solutions like Unsupervised. Unsupervised's AI Data Analysts have delivered strong ROI—improving our key metrics while empowering our team with faster, smarter access to data insights.”

Unsupervised says its mission is to “unlock hidden value in data to drive better decisions.” It claims its customers have uncovered “$1 billion worth of actionable insights.”

Also noted…

Former Vodafone Group executive Vivek Badrinath is to succeed Mats Granryd as the Director General (DG) of the GSMA from April 1, 2025. He will join the GSMA on January 1, 2025 as DG designate.

The European Telecommunications Network Operators (ETNO) association has changed its name to Connect Europe and appointed Alessandro Gropelli as Director General to succeed Lise Fuhr who is leaving the organization this fall for a new CEO position elsewhere.