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Geir Gylterud (35) is Research<br />
Scientist at <strong>Telenor</strong> R&D, Trondheim,<br />
where he has worked in<br />
the Open Platforms and Service<br />
Innovation group since February<br />
1997. He has been working in<br />
the field of Value Added Services<br />
(IN) with focus on platforms<br />
and the integration of such<br />
to Internet applications. The<br />
focus has over the recent years<br />
turned to Open Service Platforms<br />
featuring middleware technology<br />
for the distribution of the<br />
service execution environment<br />
and using Open APIs as Parlay<br />
and OSA for service provisioning<br />
to fixed and mobile subscribers.<br />
geir.gylterud@telenor.com<br />
Gaute Nygreen (26) is Research<br />
Scientist at <strong>Telenor</strong> R&D, Trondheim,<br />
where he has worked in<br />
the Open Platforms and Service<br />
Innovation group since March<br />
2000. His work consists mainly<br />
of prototyping using open APIs<br />
like the OSA and the Parlay API.<br />
Special interests include open<br />
application interfaces for telecom.<br />
gaute.nygreen@telenor.com<br />
92<br />
Providing Open Application Interfaces to<br />
Support Third-Party Service Providers and<br />
Developers<br />
GEIR GYLTERUD AND GAUTE NYGREEN<br />
This paper deals with the emerging standards for the provisioning of open application interfaces<br />
to provide services to subscribers in traditionally closed networks. It provides an<br />
overview of the emerging standards in this area and discusses the opportunities and consequences<br />
this will have for the next generation of wireless networks (UMTS and beyond).<br />
Traditionally, the provisioning of services and applications in the network has been the<br />
domain of the network operator, the network being wired or wireless. This way, the network<br />
operators have been able to generate substantial revenue and at the same time provide<br />
customers with valued services, increasing the customer’s loyalty to a specific operator. So<br />
far this privilege of providing services to the network has been well protected, certainly to<br />
protect a good source of revenue, but also for the reason that there has not been any secure<br />
and standardised way to preserve the integrity and security of the network while opening up<br />
for others to provide services. This is now about to change. Deregulation in the telecom market<br />
along with heavier competition, and the tremendous growth of the Internet with the ITworld’s<br />
richness in applications and services, are the driving forces behind the work of opening<br />
up network interfaces to other service providers and competitors. In standardisation bodies<br />
like ITU-T and 3GPP standards are already being prepared which will give the network<br />
operator the ability to give other service providers access to providing services while also<br />
preserving the security and integrity of the network. The provisioning of open interfaces will<br />
force the implementation of new business models for telecom operators and service<br />
providers. The success of this model will of course depend on the ability to create revenue<br />
for each of the participating entities, which will be a great challenge.<br />
1 Introduction<br />
– a Marketplace in Change<br />
The market for mobile and wireless communication<br />
services is changing rapidly and is becoming<br />
more and more competitive. This means that<br />
the network operator has to offer a diversity of<br />
differentiated services to be able to attract new<br />
customers but also to keep the existing customers<br />
and gain their loyalty. Open application<br />
interfaces against external service providers will<br />
be one of the tools the network operator will use<br />
to offer these differentiated services.<br />
Not that many years ago governmentally owned<br />
telecom operators had a monopoly to deliver telecom<br />
services to customers within their country.<br />
In the last few years we have seen a dramatic<br />
change in the telecom market with the opening<br />
and liberalisation of the market. This is especially<br />
visible when it comes to the mobile or<br />
wireless arena. If we look at the Norwegian<br />
mobile communication market, we see that the<br />
competition among mobile operators is getting<br />
tougher. For the GSM network we have two<br />
major operators in <strong>Telenor</strong> AS and NetCom AS,<br />
plus some virtual operators renting the unused<br />
capacity from these network operators. With the<br />
introduction of UMTS, four operators have been<br />
allotted a licence to build and operate a UMTS<br />
network, and the competition to attract cus-<br />
tomers is steadily increasing. This increasing<br />
competition will necessarily force the incumbent<br />
operators to change the way they look at and<br />
serve their customers. Getting new customers,<br />
keeping them satisfied and creating a loyalty<br />
among them that makes them willing to stay<br />
with the same operator for a longer period of<br />
time is one of the most important tasks from the<br />
telecom operator’s point of view. It is getting<br />
more and more important to provide customers<br />
with unique “can’t do without” services that<br />
make you as an operator attractive to the customers<br />
and make it harder for the customers to<br />
move to another operator.<br />
As the market is changing, so is the way of providing<br />
services. Figure 1 presents a view of the<br />
changes in the way services are provided in<br />
future mobile networks as presented by UMTS<br />
Forum [6].<br />
The figure shows a relative change in the valuechain<br />
of telecommunication service provisioning.<br />
As the terminal gets more intelligent and<br />
provides a service runtime environment and sufficient<br />
storage capacity, the amount of terminal<br />
based services will increase substantially. The<br />
amount of services provided by the network<br />
operator might decrease and only a slight<br />
increase in network applications is here<br />
assumed. The reason for this is the large fore-<br />
Telektronikk 1.2001
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