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The ‘Broadband as a Service: The future of wholesale broadband ordering – Phase II’ Catalyst is designed to streamline collaboration between buyers and sellers within the wholesale broadband ecosystem. By leveraging TM Forum standards and the Open Digital Architecture as a common foundation, the project is developing a standard product model, lifecycle, APIs, and supporting services – laying the groundwork for a consistent and interoperable collaboration framework across the broadband ecosystem.
Streamlining interactions between broadband wholesalers and retailers through TM Forum Open APIs
Commercial context
With rising demand for fast and reliable connectivity, there is a growing need for standardized frameworks to enable efficient and rapid deployment of broadband services. Today, the lack of standards for fiber networks and mixed implementations results in delayed deliveries and high costs for service providers.
Standardization of APIs in the fiber wholesale ecosystem would deliver interoperability, scalability, and simplicity for service providers and network operators alike. The ecosystem of TM Forum and its members, along with the adoption of TM Forum Open APIs, plays a critical role in reducing integration costs by enabling all parties to ‘speak the same language’ — rather than investing time and effort in building custom mapping layers or proprietary APIs that deviate from TM Forum standards.
In Norway, for example, more than 100 network operators serve approximately 5.5 million consumers. “To have an open market that actually functions [with] over 100 different network operators, that all open networks in their own way, with their own process, with their own APIs, it's quite easy to see that the complexity for an ISP would be exponential,” says Egil Risvoll Sørensen, Vice President IT Wholesale at Lyse Tele, one of the Champions of the Catalyst. “No-one would be making any money at all in a model like that. So, for us, it's crucial to have standardization.”
In the UK, CityFibre is actively promoting the adoption of TM Forum Open APIs as the foundation for a common language across the industry. This approach enables partners to integrate more easily and seamlessly, reducing friction and significantly lowering integration costs by leveraging the TM Forum ecosystem instead of relying on bespoke mappings or proprietary interfaces.
Solution
The ‘Broadband as a Service: The future of wholesale broadband ordering – Phase II’ Catalyst aims to provide a unified API framework to support seamless integration between wholesale fiber providers and retail service providers, regardless of geographic location or technology stack. This unified API framework is based on TM Forum Standards and leverages the TM Forum Open APIs, ensuring consistency, interoperability, and ease of adoption across the ecosystem. Building on Phase I, which developed a draft basic implementation, Phase II delivers a working standard that consists of a TM Forum API profile, Open API definition, user documentation and compliance toolkit. The proposed solution is designed to enable zero-touch automation between access and service providers.
The solution uses TM Forum’s Domain Context Specialization (DCS) capabilities to integrate the components of the TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture with its Open APIs to create buyer/seller interfaces. Focused on optimizing the product ordering process in both the service and resource domains, these interfaces are based on a predefined product model for wholesale broadband access. The team is also extending TM Forum Open APIs – as part of the effort, a new Wholesale Broadband API Suite has been developed and is currently under review.
Applications
A leaner, standards-based architecture should result in a more seamless customer experience. By adopting standardized TM Forum Open APIs, vendors contributing to the ecosystem can interact more smoothly and effectively using a common language based on TM Forum standards. This standardization reduces complexities related to vendor compatibility, simplifies onboarding, and accelerates the delivery of fiber-based services. It also helps lower implementation costs while still allowing individual vendors the flexibility to adapt to regional and commercial requirements.
The Catalyst is also laying the foundations for service provider products by building a common framework for the broadband ecosystem. In Phase II it was extended to service providers offering products to end users, helping build a TM Forum ecosystem based on common definitions that further simplify and reduce IT costs.
“Our goal was to simplify and standardize the interactions between sellers and providers by leveraging TM Forum standards,” says Karsten Thon, Senior Business Architect at Telekom Deutschland, one of the Champions of the Catalyst. “What sets this work apart is the introduction of the Domain Context Specialization (DCS) pattern applied to TM Forum Open APIs—a novel approach being demonstrated for the first time in a functioning Catalyst project.”
As well as proving the feasibility of the DCS pattern, the Catalyst is aiming to highlight its potential to enable scalable, interoperable solutions across the industry. Along with Deutsche Telekom and Lyse, AT&T, BT, Cityfibre, Deutsche Glasfaser and Vodafone are Champions of the Catalyst.
Wider value
The development of a standardized, reusable architecture would result in multiple commercial and sustainability benefits. It would, for example, lower energy consumption by reducing the need for bespoke code, point-to-point integrations, and repeated testing cycles. At the same time, automation and self-service TM Forum Open APIs will reduce the need for manpower, especially in operations and maintenance. As partners will connect via a shared interface model, rather than building proprietary gateways or custom stacks, infrastructure overheads will also be lower.
“By eliminating inefficiencies across the digital supply chain, the Catalyst supports long-term environmental and economic sustainability, while also enabling scalable, future-ready broadband services that align with ESG goals and digital inclusion strategies," explains Karsten Thon. “CSPs can achieve up to 90% automation in order processing, resulting in significant cost savings and improved customer satisfaction.”
In Norway, Lyse plans to use TM Forum Open APIs to underpin its greenfield fiber broadband marketplace. When an ISP queries the marketplace, for example, the request will be automatically relayed to participating network operators. “Wholesale is a margin game, so we need efficient processes, otherwise we lose money on every access we sell,” explains Egil Risvoll Sørensen. “We're in the process of designing the requirements for the marketplace, and the work we're doing here in the Catalyst is paramount to that.”
