CEOs of major Asian telecom operators, Axiata and Globe Telecom, have expressed support for the progress made with the GSMA Open Gateway initiative while also advocating for deeper cross-operator collaboration within the industry.
During the opening ceremony at MWC Shanghai 2024, a keynote entitled "Future First with Open Gateway" was presented by GSMA Director-General, Mats Granryd.
Contributing to the discourse, Hans Wijayasuriya, CEO, Telecommunications & Group EVP, Axiata Group, underscored the critical role of collaboration in driving the success of the Open Gateway project. He emphasized Axiata's strategy, which encompasses collaborating with three other operators in Indonesia to collectively introduce a range of Applications Programming Interface (API) services, and advocated for the continued enhancement and scaling of this approach.
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“It’s important to paint a global industry perspective, almost like a federation, where we implement a global lattice of telco APIs; so you can plug in anywhere in the world,” he stated.
He added that telcos should prioritize collaboration and foster a new model of coopetition instead of engaging in competitive battles akin to those seen in consumer internet sectors. Failure to do so could lead to disintermediation, value erosion, and the rapid loss of a significant USD 300 billion market opportunity.
Ernest Cu, President and CEO of Globe Telecom (Globe) in the Philippines, concurred, highlighting Globe’s recent announcement of joining the GSMA’s Open Gateway initiative. This initiative focuses on creating shared open-source APIs to expedite the introduction of new services.
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Globe Telecom has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the GSMA, aiming to improve the interoperability and delivery of mobile services globally through cooperation and standardization. This partnership provides Globe with access to the GSMA Open Gateway, an API platform that marks a substantial evolution in how the telecom industry develops and provides services in an API-centric economy.
Cu emphasized the importance of standardization for certified APIs and stressed the need for operators to maintain rigorous network security once they are available.
