The GSMA 3rd Party Access Project aims to simplify access to network operators’ proprietary APIs. At the moment such APIs are either not available, only available to large companies who can negotiate access or where available are different for each operator.

The goal of the GSMA Access API project is for operators to present a common, lightweight API to developers to encourage the kind of innovation that has been seen on the ‘fixed’ Web with open APIs.

The GSMA have gathered together 14 operators and determined the initial list of capabilities to be exposed, based on the feasibility/value/current exposure of various network capabilities and functions.
 
The initial proposal defines the following capabilities:

• Charging users for your applications, via the operator phone bill
• Messaging users via SMS and MMS
• Anonymous Subscriber Identification: recognise your users without broaching their privacy, including operator identification
• Connection profile, to help tailor your content accordingly
• Location of the handset
• User profile: to help ensure age group and user opt-in is considered in delivering suitable content

The GSMA is currently asking for feedback on these and other capabilities you might need. You need to register your interest on the GSMA web site after which you can comment on the capabilities. I have already left some comments regarding native vs. application development, messaging and authentication. Note, their secure portal site only worked under IE (not Firefox) for me.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 11:58 pm and is filed under WAP, Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.