GSMA, the association of mobile network operators representing more than a thousand full and associate member companies worldwide, recently launched the Open Gateway initiative, an effort that we in the satellite industry should notice.
“Telcos have come a long way in developing a global platform to connect everyone and everything. Now, by federating open network APIs and applying the roaming concept of interoperability, mobile operators and cloud services will be truly integrated to enable a new world of opportunity,” said José María Álvarez-Pallete López, GSMA's Chairman and Chairman & CEO of Telefónica in announcing the initiative.
He added, “Collaboration amongst telecom operators and cloud providers is crucial in this new digital ecosystem.”
And satellite network operators, too?
The initiative’s goal is to provide universal access to operator networks for developers, and there are a number of good reasons for satellite to take note of this effort. Perhaps most importantly, if successful, it’s one more point of integration we’ll need to adapt to if the satellite industry expects to truly become an integral part of Lopez’s “new digital ecosystem.” The emergence of 5G NTN networks makes this a good time for satellite operators to engage.
Because the initiative launched with the backing of 20 of the world’s leading network operators, including AT&T, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, Orange and SingTel, it has at least a decent shot at succeeding. Those 20 were just joined by China’s three largest telcos, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, together representing some 1.7 billion mobile subscribers.
Eight universal network APIs are defined so far, including Edge Site Selection & Routing and Number Verification, and the group plans to release more. The telco network capabilities are exposed via common, northbound service APIs within a “consistent, interoperable and federated framework.”
How does this benefit satellite? Besides enabling more companies with more developers to bring more innovation, developers could begin to use the same tools for satellite and terrestrial networks, reducing costs, increasing functionality while improving the integration of satellite with telcos. It’s one less thing for us to do differently. Imagine, for example, an airline customer’s AI app running across multiple networks, satellites, orbits and satellite operators to unblock severe service bottlenecks at a major airport in a weather emergency during a high travel holiday.
You can probably tell that I like this idea. Especially if we also apply the concept within our own community of space networks.
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