Ericsson Network Abstraction Layer
API exposure empowers developers to harness the immense potential of the 5G network, driving innovation and enabling the seamless integration of 5G capabilities into various industries, including healthcare, transportation, entertainment, and beyond. Communication Service Providers (CSPs) can monetize their 5G investments through API exposure by offering their network and OSS/BSS capabilities and resources to developers, enterprises, and other stakeholders.
Ericsson's Network Abstraction Layer enables CSPs to seamlessly expose their network and OSS/BSS capabilities through service APIs to meet the requirements of new use cases and add value to 5G ecosystem. It offers standardization in a fragmented CSP market with functions enabling the exposure and monetization of CSP aware user information in secure way following regulatory requirements.
Through API exposure, CSPs can create new re...
Faster time to revenue
Enables CSPs to explore and generate incremental revenue opportunities by means of service and API exposure.
New service enabler
Facilitates seamless integration with enterprises, application developers and partners to meet the requirements of new use cases and add value to the ecosystem.
Secure authentication and authorization
Provides functions needed for exposure and monetization of CSP aware user information in secure way following regulatory requirements.
Cloud Core Exposure Server
Securely expose and monetize your core network capabilities to external parties via APIs.
Cloud Core Exposure Server
The exposure of IT resources using APIs is not a new concept. For over a decade, CSPs have been using API gateways and management functions to achieve this. Typically, these functions directly integrate with the nodes that expose the functionality, resulting in a tight coupling between them. However, this approach presents challenges that hinder widespread adoption by developers and impede business scalability:
- Complexity of APIs necessitates telecom-specific knowledge for both developers and consumers.
- Exposure of network capabilities requires interoperability between multiple domains (RAN, Core, BSS, OSS) and multiple vendor systems, increasing the complexity for developers and consumers.
- The initial use-cases are delivered using point-to-point integration toward the different exposure points and individual APIs. However, as the scale grows complexity increases, for example API harmonization, privacy, and security, and operation and maintenance.
The recent work by industry bodies on CAMARA and Open Gateway projects aims to address simplification and harmonization of consumable APIs for both aggregators and enterprises as well as the developer community. This puts specific requirements on the architecture and functions needed by the CSP to address exposure business at scale, while following GDPR rules and regional regulations on privacy and data use.
Ericsson's Network Abstraction Layer offers a simplified and harmonized way to expose, manage and monetize CSP network capabilities as "easy to consume" service APIs to aggregators like Vonage, HCP platforms, or directly to enterprises.