BT, Orange, Telefónica, Vodafone are part of a group of global operators that have adopted a new set of open APIs in a bid to update their IT architectures.

Created by the TM Forum, the industry body that is holding its annual showcase in Nice this week, the 18 Open APIs are designed to boost operators’ digital capabilities.

For example, they promise to speed up business transformation projects, reduce time-to-market for new services and open up telco platforms to the developer community.

According to a statement from the TM Forum, BT was able to reduce 4,500 systems to 26 platforms and 1,800 systems, as well as reduce new service introduction from eight months to just hours using Open APIs.

Axiata, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, China Unicom and NTT Group have joined their European counterparts in signing up to use them.

Vodafone Group Chief Systems Architect Dr Lester Thomas said: “One lesson from hyper-scale Internet companies is that APIs and platforms allow the creation of a standards-based ecosystem, whilst enabling innovation in the implementation.

“A critical advantage of platforms and APIs is that they provide an evolutionary path from the current telco operating model to the future Network-as-a-Service model.”

Laurent Leboucher, VP of APIs & ecosystems at Orange, added: “The reference architecture and APIs we are co-creating are critical enablers of our API program and open innovation approach for building innovative new digital services in a number of key areas, including IoT applications, smart cities, mobile banking and more.”

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