Snyder adds that those capabilities can also extend beyond a given operator's platform. "You can go into a specific vertical and develop a very powerful application, get it distributed through a storefront or distribution system that has power behind the carrier at a larger level, and then being able to take that across carriers. So now you can do things like click to conferencing across networks."
While it's early days for OneAPI - only a handful of operators are supporting it at the moment, none of them in Asia - it's slightly more than just talk. In February, Canadian operators Bell Mobility, Rogers and Telus launched a commercial trial of OneAPI with all three operators sharing a single gateway through which developers can create network-powered apps that work across all three networks. The results will be used as a benchmark for future pilots, according to the GSMA.
The pilot will also serve as a potential litmus test for the overall apps market and what kind of retail experience users want, says Nauby Jacob, VP of user experience and content at Bell Mobility.
"OneAPI enables the market to evolve to the point where we could see carriers become retailers, or the other way around, where a company like Best Buy gets into the mobile content business," he says. "Then the market will decide if that's what it wants."
APIs exposed
One significant catch to making one's pipes smarter is that the tools to leverage those smarts have to be able to get to the rich data inside them - and that's going to depend on how the network stores user data already, says Holmala of NSN.
"With some of the legacy systems deployed in many networks, a lot of the information is fragmented in different parts of the network," he says. "So the object is to consolidate that, centralize it and link it to different apps."
Sandip Mukerjee, VP of business strategy and marketing at Alcatel-Lucent, adds: "The network needs to be instrumented so these APIs can be exposed. You're not going to have an abstraction activity for every single major capability in the network."