By: Staff Writer
Colombo (LNW): Sri Lanka’s mobile operator community yesterday announced the commercial launch of new industry-wide network APIs, as part of the GSMA Open Gateway initiative.
Application Programming Interface. In the context of APIs, the word Application refers to any software with a distinct function.
Interface can be thought of as a contract of service between two applications. This contract defines how the two communicate with each other using requests and responses.
In doing so, they will help developers and businesses accelerate the growth of digital services and apps, by ensuring they work seamlessly with all the country’s mobile networks and 100s of others around the world.
All four of the countries mobile operators; Bharti Airtel Lanka Ltd., Dialog Axiata, Hutchison Telecommunications Lanka Ltd., and SLT-Mobitel have prioritised and launched three value creating APIs.
These are One Time Password (OTP) validation, Device Location and Carrier Billing, giving developers and enterprises a standard way to technically and commercially reach over 21 million Sri Lankans regardless of their network operator.
As part of the GSMA Open Gateway initiative, these APIs will be locally and globally federated, meaning developers can reach new subscribers outside of Sri Lanka as Open Gateway coverage grows.
The initial set of APIs are set to revolutionise the digital adoption by Sri Lankan enterprises and developers by providing a single integration that works across all four operators in the country.
GSMA Open Gateway empowers developers worldwide to create innovative services by accessing network resources. Developed in collaboration with mobile operators worldwide, the framework ensures consistent, interoperable access to mobile networks through the standards-based CAMARA repository, a Linux Foundation project.
The initiative fosters collaborations among operators, industry associations, developers, and content creators while adhering to all relevant technical standards, regulations and user privacy standards. More than 36 mobile operator groups, representing 214 mobile networks and 60% of mobile connections worldwide, are now part of the initiative.
The platform delivered by the GSMA Open Gateway initiative will enable operators to offer an exciting new and federated portfolio of services that developers can access through APIs to enhance the experience that they deliver to their users.
