GSMA Open Gateway: Sri Lanka launch commercial network APIs

As part of the GSMA Open Gateway initiative, Sri Lankan telecom operators recently announced the commercial launch of country-wide network APIs. Through this program, developers would have improved means of building products and services that work smoothly across every mobile network as well as many other global networks.

What’s the GSMA Open Gateway initiative?

GSMA Open Gateway is a framework of common network APIs with the idea of offering developers universal access to operator networks. As GSMA puts its, the initiative enables developers and cloud providers “enhance and deploy services more quickly across operator networks via single points of access to the world’s largest connectivity platform.” Additionally, GSMA Open Gateway aims to open up 5G network capabilities through the data service APIs “which are more readily available across global telecom networks and countries.”

The initiative’s infrastructural requirements are supported by CAMARA, the open source project within the Linux Foundation that serves to define, develop, and test APIs. Its collaboration with the GSMA Operator Platform Group looks to “align API requirements and publish API definitions and APIs.” This translates to opening up telecom operators’ network capabilities in a consistent, federated framework that’s also interoperable.

The initiative kicked off with 21 mobile network operators and has now expanded to 36 groups representing 214 mobile networks, covering 60% of the world’s mobile connections. The latest announcement means that Sri Lanka’s four players, Dialog Axiata, Hutch Sri Lanka, Airtel Sri Lanka, and SLT-Mobitel have joined the list.

What the GSMA Open Gateway means for Sri Lanka

With the launch, Sri Lankan telecom operators will prioritize three specific APIs: One Time Password (OTP) validation, Device Location and Carrier Billing. This would allow developers and organizations to reach Sri Lankans island-wide regardless of the specific mobile network, along with users beyond the country.

GSMA Director General Mats Granryd stated “Sri Lanka’s launch of commercial network APIs marks a great moment for the global GSMA Open Gateway initiative, and we welcome the progress and collaboration the country’s four operators have demonstrated.” The Director General further added that he believes “GSMA Open Gateway offers huge potential to unlock further value from 5G connectivity and deliver similar, significant levels of change for digital services” in the same way it did for mobile voice services and roaming 35 years ago.