Ericsson expects tangible revenues for CSPs from APIs this year
As expected, fraud prevention will get the API ball rolling
An analyst said, however, that APIs will not even equate to a single percentage point of any operator’s total revenues
Ericsson tells Fierce that in order to use 5G APIs, operators will need to have secure exposure capability and expose the network core layer, according to the CAMARA standard.
Talking to Fierce recently during MWC, Fredrik Gessler, head of global network platform product management at Ericsson, said: “It takes a while for [operators] to establish the exposure layer.”
This is generally using the 5G network exposure function (NEF) – and there are a lot of papers on that – which works on the 5G core. “It allows carriers to securely handle valuable data coming from Application Functions (AF) and enables optimal allocation and utilization of resources,” said systems integration company Amantya in an article on NEF.
Tangible revenues from APIs?
“I think that we will start to see the first tangible revenues during this year” for operators implementing APIs, Gessler said. The major APIs implemented will begin with authentication and fraud prevention APIs. Device location and status APIs will follow.
Gessler thinks the first APIs will be “consumer-focused” but that “enterprise applications have a better chance of generating revenue for an operator.” Enterprises may use APIs like Quality on Demand for business applications, as already demonstrated by Nokia.
“Tangible revenues in 2025 just means that some operators will have commercial offerings and that will generate some revenues in 2025,” commented Daryl Schoolar, an analyst from Recon Analytics, in an email to Fierce. “Tangible does not mean that revenues from commercial API offerings will even equate to a single percentage point of any operator’s total revenues.”
Both Schoolar and Leonard Lee, managing director of neXt Curve, believe that Ericsson – with its Aduna API venture – will be one of the major API vendors.
“They have to focus on building liquidity and scale for the high value, easy to do APIs versus the more complex and network capabilities,” Lee said. “Security and trust are important markets for Aduna to enable for their operator partners. neXt Curve believes that based on the rapidly growing cybercriminal economy, trust and security will be growing markets for network APIs.”