Presentation

22.03.2024
APIs enabling seamless access to
Telco network capabilitites

Telco network capabilities exposed through APIs provide a large

benefit for customers. By simplifying telco network complexity
with APIs and making the APIs available across telco networks and
countries, CAMARA enables easy and seamless access.

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5G network capabilities
Introduction

Telco network capabilities are functions partly available already in 4G

but new and much more powerful in the 5G network. These functions
enable to get information out of the network but also to configure the
network.
The on-demand, secure and controlled exposure of these capabilities
pave the way for transforming operator networks into service
enablement platforms, facilitating the application-to-network
integration, which will be key to deliver enhanced and service-tailored
customer experience in the 5G era.

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5G network capabilities
Introduction

Reachability and Location of UEs # of UEs in geographic region # of UEs in slice, network congestion
Identify (last known) location of drone Traffic jam or Corona warning Adapt resolution for video transmission

Quality on Demand / Traffic influence Wake up UEs Block UEs in geographic region
Enable augmented reality Support low energy IoT devices Crisis management

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 What is the CAMARA Project?
Key problems we try to solve

Scale Consistency Simplicity Accessibility Demand driven

Developers dream of being Multi-nationals want Telco networks are We go to the developers We develop the APIs and
the next unicorn… If apps, consistency across all complex, and every where they are so the design it in the way our
products, or services are markets they operate in… network is different…. project is open sourced in customers need it. The
built on our APIs they want they do not want APIs that Developers want simple, the Linux Foundation. demand is collected from
them in all relevant only work in a single intent-based APIs. Allowing API users to work organizations like GSMA
markets and networks network in a single country. directly with CSPs creating OPAG but also from
globally. They do not want to try and the service. customers directly.
build for the differences of
each network.
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 Abstraction API
Architecture

Abstraction from Network

APIs to Service APIs is
necessary:

• To simplify telco
complexity making APIs
easy to consume for
customers with no telco
expertise (user-friendly
APIs)

• To satisfy data privacy and

regulatory requirements

• To facilitate application to
network integration

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 Telco Y Telco X Telco Y Telco X
NT IT Other NT IT Other NT IT Other NT IT Other

Exposure Gateway Exposure Gateway Exposure Gateway Exposure Gateway

Abstraction API
Distribution Options

Capability Capability
Consumer Consumer
C. Multi-Operator Relationship
A. Single-Operator Relationship

Telco Y Telco X Telco Y Telco X

NT IT Other NT IT Other NT IT Other NT IT Other

Exposure Gateway Exposure Gateway Exposure Gateway Exposure Gateway

Aggregator
D. Operator Aggregation

Capability Capability
Consumer Consumer
B. Single-Operator “API Roaming”

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Availability
Benefit

Availability across telco networks and countries is necessary:

• To ensure seamless customer experience
• To accelerate technology development and commercial adoption
(minimize implementation effort)
• To accelerate education and promotion
• To support application portability

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CAMARA
Mission

CAMARA is an open source project within Linux Foundation to define,

develop and test the APIs. CAMARA works in close collaboration with the
GSMA Operator Platform Group to align API requirements and publish
API definitions and APIs. Harmonization of APIs is achieved through fast
and agile created working code with developer-friendly documentation.
API definitions and reference implementations are free to use
(Apache2.0 license).

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CAMARA
Scope

Application

From functional perspective the scope is N Service API

limited to telco APIs, that means APIs in
the domain of telco mobile networks,
telco fixed line networks, telco edge Exposure
cloud, etc. or supporting these. Gateway
E/W
Transformation
Thereby the focus is on the northbound Function
interface (between telco operator and
aggregator or capability consumer). S Network S
East-/westbound interface APIs are out API
of scope for CAMARA.
NT/IT/Other

Operator 1 Operator 2 10
 CAMARA
Scope

We differentiate between 3 types of Northbound APIs:

• Service APIs: APIs intended for end consumers and

integrated by developers to invoke a certain telco
capability.

• Service Management APIs: APIs intended for end

consumers to manage or get data about offered Service
APIs in application runtime, e.g., check service availability
or performance information.

• Operate APIs: Operational and maintenance APIs provided

by a telco to channel partners for the purpose of service
fulfillment and assurance to their [channel partner] Service APIs and Service Management APIs
customers. This may include service provisioning for a are in scope of CAMARA. Operate APIs are out of
mobile user, technical API performance monitoring, fault scope of CAMARA (these are already covered by
ticketing, information exchange such as product catalog, other SDOs = Standards Development
pricing, settlement, etc. Organizations like TM Forum).

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CAMARA
Scope

Hyperscalers and aggregators have the possibility to create own enriched products based on the
CAMARA APIs and expose that in addition to the CAMARA APIs.

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CAMARA
Scope

CAMARA project defines

CAMARA APIs.

TMForum develops the Operate

APIs.

Several SDOs cover the different

technology domains that provide
the telco capabilities.

More details can be found in the

whitepaper “The Ecosystem for
Open Gateway NaaS API
Development” (jointly published
by GSMA, CAMARA, Linux
Foundation and TMForum)
available here.

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 CAMARA
Scope

The scope of the CAMARA Project is:

• Collect API requirements from GSMA Operator Platform Group and other sources
• Define Service APIs and Service Management APIs
• Create test plans / cases / tools from an API consumer perspective
• Develop and test Service APIs and Service Management APIs

• Create developer friendly documentation

The following deliverables are provided by the CAMARA Project:

• Service API and Service Management API definitions and documentation
• Optionally Service API and Service Management API code and
• Test plans, cases and tools for the APIs all contained in deployment packages.
Project resources can be found in the GitHub repository: https://github.com/camaraproject. 14
 CAMARA
Where we started…

Launched at MWC Barcelona 2022

22 Launch Partners
Supported by GSMA and Linux
Foundation

Simple idea to “standardize” developer

facing APIs

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CAMARA
… and where we are now

• 103 Named Partners

• 342 (+160*) companies
participating in CAMARA
• 23 Active API
development repos
• 992 (+981*) people joined
CAMARA
• Development ”home” for
GSMA Open Gateway

* Number in brackets indicates companies and people who are in contact but haven‘t joined

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CAMARA
Logos

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CAMARA
API Showcases
https://camaraproject.org/resources/

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CAMARA - Collaboration with
GSMA Open Gateway

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 Current CAMARA API
Families (1)

Call
Anonymised
Blockchain Carrier Billing Connectivity
Forwarding Click to Dial
Public Address
Subscriber ID CheckOut Insights
Signal
Identify
Manageaaclient device
blockchain Determine if a Purchase, pay, and Establish web-based Alerts the consumers if
tryingpublic
to access network
address “call forwarding” follow up on fulfilment communication by and when the QoS
services
associated to a phone service is of products clicking an object threshold has breached
number enabled

Device Device Home Devices

Device Status Device Swap Edge Cloud
Identifier Location QoD
Check the identity of Check the Check the network Check if the MSISDN Provide and manage Request prioritization
the subscribers’ device location of a connection and has had a change of network and compute of traffic on a specific
device roaming status of a device in the last 30 resources for an device on the home
device days application network

Identity and Know Your Network Slice Number Population

OTP Validation
Consent Mgmt Customer Booking Verification Density Data
Provides solutions to Allows service Reserve, dynamically Allows users to To offer secure user Get dynamic population
capture, store and providers to validate provision, query, verify the phone authentication to density data in a
manage user user information dynamically delete a number of the service providers specific area for a future
consent with operators slice connected device date & time
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 Current CAMARA API
Families (2)

Quality on Region User Short Message Site to Cloud

SIM Swap Web RTC
Demand Count Service VPN
Allows users to set Query the number of Send SMS to the Create and configure Allows users to get Add real-time
mobile connection active users in the destination site to cloud network information on SIM communication
quality specified area address(es) service by one click pairing changes capabilities to
and get notifications applications

CAMARA Working Groups:

Common- Marketing / Release
API Backlog
alities Outreach Management
Maintains the API Guidelines and Plans and performs Guidelines and assets
Backlog for CAMARA assets mandatory for marketing activities for Release
all CAMARA Sub for CAMARA Management in
Projects CAMARA

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CAMARA
Where are we going next…

1 Additional APIs and roadmap sync across CSPs,

Aggregators and Hyperscalers

2 API lifecycle management consistency,

Documentation of API versioning and availability globally

3 Support federation through GSMA and OAM through TM

Forum

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CAMARA
Contacts

Customers (enterprises and startups), aggregators, cloud

operators, telco operators, and network equipment vendors are
welcome to join CAMARA. Participation is free, without any fees or
obligation to work. For details or in case of questions please use
the contact page at https://camaraproject.org/contact/.
If you are interested in joining CAMARA, please subscribe to
[email protected]. You may unsubscribe from
CAMARA and these communications at any time.

If you are interested to show your logo on the CAMARA website as

“Participating Organization” you can send it to
[email protected]. Participation is also free.
If you would like to join as CAMARA sponsor or associating
organization please don’t hesitate to use the enrollment link
https://enrollment.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/?project=camarafund.
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