Network APIs take prominent focus at MWC Las Vegas
Nokia participated in the GSMA Open Gateway DevCon Summit to advance the Network API initiative
As part of the continuing growth and attention to the Network API trend, the GSMA conducted the Open Gateway DevCon Summit during the MWC Las Vegas event. Nokia was there to amplify the GSMA’s program and to provide some much-needed practical context.
Where are we seeing real traction in the marketplace?
During my keynote presentation, I spoke about some of the partnering relationships that we have been formulating with specific focus on some working examples. I discussed our work to make the Nokia Network as Code capabilities available to the Google developer community through the Google Marketplace. And then I shared a live demonstration of how we have incorporated Gemini into our Network as Code AI Assistant to further streamline the task for developers to bring network capabilities into their applications.
The importance of a meshed ecosystem
In a fireside chat session, I joined Rob Kurver of the CPaaS Acceleration Alliance and Mijo Soldin of Infobip to discuss the need for multiple platforms to work together if our telecom industry is to be successful in capitalizing on this Network API concept. One great example we discussed is how CPaaS functionalities on well-established platforms like Infobip can be combined together with emerging Network API functionalities in a seamless manner. We need to eliminate any friction for the developer community to have success. In cases where developers may already be working with a CPaaS platform, let’s make it easy for them to expand into new Network API functionalities seamlessly. Infobip and I explained how we are doing that together as a good model that other suppliers may follow.
Use-cases continue to win the day
When I present at conferences like this one, I find that the audience really sits up tallest in their seats when I show use-cases. We had this same reaction during the MWC Open Gateway event this past February in Barcelona when we shared the use-case to support remote a vessel captain service in the port of Antwerp in conjunction with Liberty Global’s Telenet. And at the MWC Open Gateway event last September in Las Vegas, I share the use-case of remote drone operations Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLoS) from Belgium to Germany together with Deutsche Telecom.
So it was no surprise when I got a similar reaction this year at the Las Vegas event when I shared a use-case of remote tele-driving that we have implemented together with Elmo Car in Europe. When I make these presentations, the active Q&A that I get seems to follow two primary angles; I get questions about the underlining technical work we have done to enable these use-cases and I also get questions about the commercial implications and go-to-market realities.
What’s next and where can you learn more?
GSMA’s Mobile World Congress Barcelona event will be in March 2025 and we will once again be there in the Open Gateway event where I look forward to sharing a few more exciting practical use-cases that we are working on. In the meantime, we are actively supporting various other events throughout the 4th quarter of 2024 including the API Days Paris event where we will have a significant presence. You can find our list of upcoming events and more information about Network as Code here.
