Linux Foundation Telco API Project, CAMARA, Graduates to Funded Model with Strong Industry Commitment

• Successful collaboration on open source telco APIs drives CAMARA project to next level with Premier and General project sponsors bolstering new funded model

• 250 companies and 750+ contributors dedicated to collaboratively define interfaces providing customers with access to telecom industry network capabilities

BILBAO, Spain — Open Source Summit Europe — September 19, 2023, The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced that its CAMARA project, an open source community addressing telco industry API interoperability, has graduated to a funded model. The news was shared onsite during the opening keynote at Open Source Summit Europe. 

Initiated in 2021 by a small number of telco operators, vendors and hyperscalers, CAMARA launched in February 2022 with 22 initial partners; it has since grown to over 250 participating organizations with over 750 contributors. To help sustain rapid growth and ensure tighter structure with more resources, the community has moved the project to the next phase and introduced a fully funded model. The funded model will introduce a Governing Board, Technical Steering Committee, and End User Council to manage collaboration at scale. 

“A true testament to the power of open source and what collaborative work can achieve, the CAMARA community is making APIs both more accessible, and more easily monetized,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “CAMARA’s work across the industry to enable developers to more quickly and easily develop and deliver APIs for operators and cloud providers is just the beginning. The new funded model will ensure even more impactful collaboration across the board.” 

CAMARA offers new opportunities for collaboration between telecoms, GSMA, TMForum and other industries providing cloud-based services by developing an open, global, accessible API solution. The benefit for customers and developer ecosystems comes in the form of consistent and user-friendly access to network capabilities, thus enabling developers to seamlessly deploy applications to run consistently across telco networks and countries. This prevents fragmentation and empowers faster, more versatile advancement of global application portability and broad industry adoption of new features and capabilities.

 "CAMARA is partnering with the whole industry to provide the right telco APIs to meet the demands of our enterprise and developer users. For that, the funded model will help us  to improve tooling and services, and to enable shorter delivery cycles for the APIs,” said Herbert Damker, Technical Steering Committee Chair, in the new CAMARA structure.  “CAMARA is making it easy and simple for the global developer community to create new, connected solutions based on our advanced network capabilities. The collaboration between network operators, cloud providers, application developers and technology vendors in CAMARA has been crucial to this success. As a founding member of CAMARA we are proud of its impact since launch and thrilled to enter into the next phase of collaboration to empower developers.”

In addition to its broad portfolio of participating organizations, the CAMARA fund is composed of 10  Premium sponsors, (including Accenture, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Microsoft, Nokia, Orange,  Telefonica, Verizon, Vodafone, T-Mobile) and 5 General sponsors (including CableLabs, Centillion, Charter Communications, Scenera, Shabodi). 

Collaboration with GSMA

CAMARA works closely with the GSMA’s Operator Platform initiative that is defining a federated platform solution for exposing operator network capabilities to external applications. This partnership ensures that developers relying on the CAMARA project’s API solution and abstraction will facilitate users across operator networks.

Earlier this year, CAMARA partnered with the GSMA, TMForum and LF Networking to publish a white paper, “The Ecosystem for Open Gateway NaaS API Development.” The paper outlines collaborative concepts of Open Gateway (a framework of common network APIs designed to provide universal access to operator networks for developers, helps application developers enhance and deploy services more quickly across operator networks via single points of access to the world’s largest connectivity platform) Network as a Service (NaaS) architecture.  

CAMARA will continue collaboration with both GSMA and TM Forum, via Technical Steering Committee (TSC) representation, to continue industry harmonization. 

Join today

CAMARA project invites all interested parties to help build the best APIs for all telecom customers by joining the fund as a Premium sponsor, General sponsor, associating organization, participating organization, or individual. More details on the project, as well as how to join, are available at https://camaraproject.org/.

Support from Sponsors:

CableLabs

“CAMARA has done outstanding work exposing key networks capabilities while enhancing the developer experience,” said Chris Corcimiglia, VP, Future Infrastructure Group, CableLabs. “We look forward to continuing our collaboration with CAMARA as we provide cable industry alignment and technical contributions to CAMARA APIs.”

Centillion

“As a leader in data modernization and it’s interoperability, with a focus on global privacy led AI optimization for LLMs and ownership, we are enthusiastically looking forward to collaborating with MNOs, developers and corporations to help them increase the spectrum of 5G innovation,” said Nick Venezia, founder, Centillion.AI.

Deutsche Telekom

“CAMARA is making it easy and simple for the global developer community to create new, connected solutions based on our advanced 5G network capabilities,” said Nathan Rader, VP, Service and Capability Exposure, Deutsche Telekom.  “The collaboration between network operators, cloud providers, application developers and technology vendors in CAMARA has been crucial to this success. As a founding member of CAMARA we are proud of its impact since launch and thrilled to enter into the next phase of collaboration to empower developers.”

Ericsson

"The CAMARA initiative shows that there is a big interest in and revenue opportunities in exposing network APIs which is also a fundamental part of our strategy. This initiative is instrumental to bring all CSP and other players such as aggregators and developer platforms to the same table and a call for action to the telecom industry to jointly make it easy for developers to build exciting applications by using network capabilities like QoS or authentication. Together with Vonage part of the Ericsson group, we are committed to make Camara successful and are actively contributing to the standardization and aim to be a main driver of the future evolution of CAMARA,” said Oliver Buschmann, Head of Group Strategy, Ericsson.

Microsoft

“As we enter a new era of network-aware applications, it’s crucial that developers have access to the right tools to create modern connected applications. A consistent experience is key, regardless of the network being used. Collaboration between hyperscalers, telecom operators, equipment providers, and developers is essential to achieving this goal. We’re proud to be key supporters of the CAMARA initiative”, said Yousef Khalidi, CVP, Microsoft.

Nokia

"Nokia is excited to join this important initiative as it is imperative for our Telecom industry to simplify the ways that application developers can add powerful network capabilities to the applications that enrich the experience of their enterprise and consumer customers,” said Nokia’s Jitin Bhandari, vice president & CTO, Cloud & Network Services. 

Orange

“The CAMARA project is shaping access to global network capabilities for developers. The evolution towards funded model marks the increasing support from digital players on the simplification and acceleration of service design enabled by network APIs. As early contributors, we welcome the development of the CAMARA community to support new use cases leveraging network connectivity and security while offering easy-to-use APIs for developers,“ said Otilia Anton, Telco APIs program director, Orange. 

Scenera                             

Scenera’s MAIstro SaaS interacts with emerging CAMARA APIs to advance the deployment of distributed AI algorithms across available computing infrastructure including on-prem edge AI, 5G MEC and the cloud,” said David Lee, CEO of Scenera. “Our goal is to provide an optimal data management framework to enable smart building and facility management applications in highly accurate and low latency, yet cost efficient ways across the 5G network infrastructure.”

Shabodi

“Shabodi believes that Advanced Networks are more than a simple connectivity pipe. Exploring the intelligence in the networks requires exposing their capabilities to applications via simple APIs across Telcos and network equipment vendors. We are pleased to join the CAMARA project to accelerate the adoption of network-aware applications for advanced use cases across industries,” said Harpreet Geekee, co-founder/CTO, Shabodi.

Telefonica

“The exposure of telco capabilities to third parties constitutes a new source of revenues and allows accelerating innovation and the rollout of new services, transforming our network into a programmable service platform.  CAMARA is a key initiative to unleash great opportunities for customers to develop new applications based on such a rich set of telco capabilities. As founding members of CAMARA, Telefonica is proud to begin a new stage of the initiative with the objective of accelerating and making this model a reality in the near future,” said Juan Carlos Garcia Lopez, senior vice president, Technology Development & Ecosystem, Telefonica. 

T-Mobile

“We’ve built the most advanced 5G network in the U.S. to deliver unmatched performance, enable new applications and services, and serve as a platform for innovation,” said John Saw, EVP and chief technology officer at T-Mobile. “I’m thrilled to see how developers will leverage the CAMARA APIs to bring our leading 5G network to the next level for our customers.”

Verizon

“The evolution of 5G and the network transformation underpinning this new platform for innovation has significantly advanced the digital landscape. As we continue to drive the ecosystem between developers and operators, it is critical to equip developers with necessary network-oriented tools to build connected applications. We are pleased to be part of the drive through CAMARA towards open, global, standardized API,” said  Anil Guntupalli, vice president of Technology Development and Planning, Verizon.