Raghav Sahgal is the president of Nokia Cloud and Network Services at Nokia.
For decades, the telecommunications industry has been the backbone of digital progress, connecting billions of people and supporting transformative technologies.
Without it, there would be no internet, no smart devices, possibly not even GenAI—the list goes on—and the world of business would grind to a halt. Yet, despite their central role, communication service providers are struggling to capture proportional value from the modern ecosystems they enable.
One way service providers are beginning to change that equation is by exposing telecom network functionality via application programming interfaces (APIs). This has the potential to unlock new revenue streams and redefine the sector’s role in the digital economy.
The industry is turning its attention to an area that has experienced massive growth: API marketplaces. This is where companies can package and sell capabilities such as navigation, streaming, payment and more to developers for use in the applications they create—and telecoms have plenty of untapped potential to offer.
This evolution represents a shift from traditional connectivity-focused business models to one where networks function as programmable platforms, leading to greater innovation and value creation.
Balancing Challenge And Opportunity
Telecom’s traditional model—based on significant infrastructure investments and consumer-focused connectivity—has delivered steady returns but yielded limited growth opportunities in recent years.
Meanwhile, other businesses have built lucrative business models that discovered new ways to capitalize on telecom’s ever-advancing network functionalities. Spotify, Roblox, WhatsApp and Venmo are just a few of the success stories.
To illustrate the imbalanced economics, Analysys Mason projects that global telecoms service revenue will grow at a CAGR of 1.65% through 2028, while Cognitive Market Research predicts that streaming services will grow at a CAGR of 22.5% through 2031.
Understandably, the search for new growth is a pressing priority.
Embracing Programmability And The API Economy
Exposing advanced 4G and 5G functionality to the developer community through network APIs is emerging as a leading solution. This will allow the industry to enter a space where webscalers including Amazon, Microsoft and Google have made significant strides over the past decade.
They exposed their capabilities through a rich set of APIs, making it easy to build and run applications in the cloud and rendering everything programmable. By transforming telecommunications networks into programmable, value-creating assets for developers, all parties stand to benefit.
APIs allow any industry undergoing digital transformation—healthcare, automotive and logistics have their share of early adopters—to leverage network functionality in ways that were previously inaccessible. Networks are increasingly software-based and cloud-native, making developer access much easier. Today, 5G allows systematic exposure of network functions.
By democratizing access to their network’s extensive capabilities, telecom service providers can foster new business models and partnerships built on aggregation and simplification. They can position themselves at the center of a dynamic ecosystem where collaboration drives growth, contrasting with previous exposure efforts that left them out of the value equation or could not scale to the same degree.
Practical Applications And Industry Impact
The potential of network APIs extends beyond theory to real-world applications.
At Nokia, our Network as Code platform is simplifying integration with tools such as software development kits (SDKs) and portals that provide developers the resources they need to create next-generation solutions. Here’s a small sample of the resulting innovations.
• Remote vessel operations leverage 5G network APIs to remotely guide large ships at the Port of Antwerp. This has cut transit times, fuel usage, manpower costs and emissions while improving port productivity with quicker turnaround times.
• Remote vehicle driving uses APIs to enable remote control of a car in the city of Espoo, Finland. The company developing the car control software integrated Nokia’s Quality of Service on Demand (QoD) to dynamically adjust the network, ensuring each car receives a high-quality video feed for safe operation.
• Live production experience enhancement is achieved using QoD integrated into the 5G network at Finland’s Nokia Arena. This ensures high-quality and uninterrupted live video production through a cloud-based master control room.
These examples merely scratch the surface of what’s possible—supporting analyst firm IDC’s projection that telecom API revenues will reach $6.7 billion by 2028 (source: IDC press release, “Global Spending on Telecom and Network APIs Forecast to Reach $6.7 Billion in 2028 as Service Providers Push Customized, Programmable Connectivity, According to IDC,” June 2024). Industry partnerships with webscalers will add further opportunities for innovation and scalability.
Automating For Speed, Scale And Savings
To maximize the value of network APIs, automation of the underlying network operations is essential.
Truly connecting the user experience to the network without introducing friction requires thinking in terms of what TM Forum calls “zero-wait, zero-touch and zero-trouble experiences” with autonomous networks. This is the only way to ensure rapid service creation and the ability to move at the speed of the real-time application requests that generate revenue.
Automation enables operators to scale their offerings rapidly, making it possible to create and provision services ten times faster than today. Efficiency gains are realized as well, providing consistent, high-quality experiences to customers and developers. Of course, this can also lower the cost of operations, and in a world where profitability is elusive, this benefit is persuasive.
How To Approach Network Programmability
Telecom operators have a unique opportunity to redefine their role in the digital ecosystem, but the path to get there requires the right approach.
• Plan for an autonomous network: Not only will this improve customer experience and ensure the ability to deliver what applications demand when they demand it, it will also substantially lower the cost of running the network.
• Prioritize security built into everything: More endpoints mean more potential for breaches. Planning a security strategy is a critical step toward protection from costly exposures.
• Build an ecosystem with software developer communities: To ensure the capabilities exposed are those most attractive to developers and sufficiently simple to use, operators must establish relationships with those customers.
• Require robust API lifecycle management: From defining the purpose of APIs to testing, deployment, versioning and documentation, there must be a way to offer a high-quality experience to customers in the developer community.
Network APIs are not just a technological innovation—they represent a strategic imperative for telecom’s future in the move to programmable networks.
Communication service providers must adapt by aligning their network capabilities with the needs of industries and developers, moving from being mere connectivity providers to value creators who fully participate in and in fact enable the evolving digital economy.
By enabling programmability and adopting open, flexible, API-driven business models, the industry can unlock new revenue streams, enable innovation and strengthen its position in the next generation of digital solutions.
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