How Ericsson is redefining digitalization through a groundbreaking new partnership

Digitalization is a driving force for positive change around the world. To fuel the next wave of innovation, broad access to advanced mobile network capabilities is essential. 5G is designed with this in mind and it is significantly more powerful than previous generations. However, its advanced capabilities are mostly out of reach for society, as developers would have to integrate network capabilities from hundreds of individual operators to access these capabilities.

But now, we are removing this hurdle in order to speed up the pace of digitalization.

In a historic collaboration, Ericsson, together with some of the world’s largest telecom operators - including América Móvil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Reliance Jio, Singtel, Telefonica, Telstra, T-Mobile, Verizon and Vodafone - are joining forces and opening their networks to make advanced network capabilities easily accessible through a global platform for combined network APIs.

This groundbreaking collaboration will enable entirely new use cases to enterprises and society and open up new revenue streams for the telecom industry. McKinsey & Co estimates the value of network APIs over the next several years will reach USD 10-30 billion, in addition to the USD 100-300 billion that can be unlocked in additional connectivity and edge-compute revenues for network operators globally.

But before I go on, it’s critical to understand why opening up the network is absolutely vital for turning this future into reality.

The network as a platform for innovation

The previous generation of mobile technology digitalized the consumer and gave rise to the app economy. Now with 5G, we have the potential to accelerate major trends in society such as the transition to clean energy, the establishment of resilient supply chains, and the widespread adoption of industrial automation. To ensure this progress continues at pace, it’s crucial to make the most powerful elements of 5G networks – like extreme low latency, lightning-fast speeds, and precise location services – broadly accessible to application developers. This will result in new use cases for banking, logistics, and manufacturing, among others, and unlock additional new revenues for the telecom industry.

This is where network APIs and our new partnership come in.

Network APIs are open interfaces that enable us to package advanced 5G network capabilities into a friendly-to-use, consume and pay-for format. These interfaces enable application developers to access specific network resources effortlessly and integrate them into advanced new use cases. For example, Quality on Demand that ensures connectivity for autonomous fleets and glitch-free video streaming of live events, number verification for frictionless and secure authentication experiences, and enhanced fraud protection for consumers and businesses.

However, there is still a significant obstacle keeping these applications from becoming reality.

With over 400 operators around the world, integrating with each individual one has been neither practical nor economical for developers. What’s needed is an additional layer that seamlessly combines the interfaces to advanced 5G capabilities. This is what we are doing through the groundbreaking announcement - empowering developers like never before, and unlocking new use cases for enterprises and society that will reimagine the future of connectivity.

The new venture will combine network APIs globally so that new applications will work anywhere, and on any network, making it easier and quicker for developers to innovate and provide new value-added services to enterprises. The new company will sell combined APIs to a broad ecosystem of developer platforms, including hyperscalers (HCPs), Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) providers, System Integrators (SIs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs).

Vonage and Google Cloud will be partners of the new company from day one, and together will provide access to an ecosystem of more than ten million developers. Vonage will also provide critical first-hand insights into the requirements that developers and businesses want from the network.

Already today, Vonage is working with a broad ecosystem of developers. For example, AWS is using Vonage’s Fraud Protection API to provide easy-to-use authentication, global number and "SIM swap" checking, as well as communications fraud monitoring, alerting, and blocking –augmented as well by generative AI.

The new venture will accelerate the kind of developer innovation that is already happening on the Vonage platform.

This is how 5G was intended to be used – as an innovation platform for enterprises and society. By making network APIs open and globally accessible, we are making advanced network functionality available to developers through a simple touch of a button! This will result in cutting edge use cases such as cloud gaming, connected vehicles and remote patient care, that offer a world of new business opportunities.

The beginning of a network effect

Through this historic collaboration with leading telecom operators, we are repositioning the telecom industry - redefining how people can access and utilize network capabilities and how networks can be monetized.

The synergy of high-performance and programmable networks, combined with network APIs, and a vibrant ecosystem of developers, will create a powerful network effect with accelerated innovation and growth.

A network effect gains momentum when network APIs are made broadly available on a global platform. As more developers join and create new applications, network traffic increases, generating more revenue for the operators. This, in turn, prompts further network investments, accelerating the cycle and enhancing the platform’s value with each new developer, enterprise, and operator that joins.

Our ambition is to extend the use of the network and accelerate digitalization in society. A global platform with a comprehensive ecosystem, which provides millions of developers with easy access to advanced network capabilities, will enable the telecom industry to invest deeper into the network API opportunity. The result will greatly benefit the telecom industry, enterprises and society as a whole.

I invite you to join us in exploring the future of digitalization through the untapped potential of network APIs and developer innovation. This is the beginning of a truly exciting journey!

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