Technology, business models, privacy, and usability are critical issues relating to open interfaces. The most important service supplied by teleoperators has been the transmission of speech. New service innovations have been actively sought, but so far with modest results. One important reason for the small number of new innovations has been the closed communication strategy. However, the situation is gradually changing: openness and open innovation can now be characterized as the new common practices. Cloud computing offers a natural technology background for open interfaces.
Major internet enterprises, such as Google, Amazon, Flickr, and Yahoo have long utilized open innovation. Teleoperators can also benefit from openness. One idea is to offer open interfaces for service developers.
In a multi-operator environment interfaces must be offered virtually over the Internet to provide a seamless experience for the developers without having to know the physical API (application programming interface) addresses of the different operators. The addresses must be defined to be extendable and usable in different software environments and terminal devices. As for standardization, several international projects have been initiated to harmonize open communication. However, technology is not the biggest challenge for the success of open interfaces. The terms of use of the interfaces by service developers should be reasonable and balanced, but on the other hand, the goals of content producers, advertisers, and teleoperators should also be considered.
Good usability is an essential part of the conceptualization of the new service. Various service mashups can be improved in a number of ways to benefit from the open interfaces offered by the operator. Together with other interfaces and software, open interfaces pave the way for totally new service innovations. Localization, payments, communication, and profile information are examples of the service components offered by open interfaces.
Open communication system is also in line with the goals of the Cloud Software Program striving for a breakthrough for cloud software; these goals include improving the profitability of the domestic software industry, international competitiveness, and developing a new ecosystem around cloud software. The industrial partners in the Cloud Software Program, TeliaSonera, Ericsson, NSN, Nokia, F-Secure, and Tieto, and the academic partners VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, University of Helsinki, University of Jyväskylä, and Aalto University provide a high-quality network for research into open interfaces. The open communication system has been studied at Aalto University, at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. The Department also participates in the Cloud Software Program.
More information:
Yrjö Raivio (yrjo.raivioATtkk.fi)
Tel. +358 50 568 9672
http://www.cse.tkk.fi/
Further reading:
1) Raivio, Y, Luukkainen S, & Seppälä,S 2011, ’Towards Open Telco –
Business Models of API Management Providers’, HICSS-44, Kauai, Hawaii,January 4-7, 2011.
2) Suikkola, V 2010, ‘Open Exposure of Telco Capabilities - Identification of Critical Success Factors for Location-based Services in Open Telco’, The Sixth International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Communications (ICWMC 2010), Valencia, Spain, September 20-25, 2010.
3) Raivio, Y, Luukkainen, S & Juntunen, A 2009, ‘Open Telco: A New Business Potential’, Proceedings of the 5th ACM Mobility Conference 2009, ACM, Nice, France, September 2 - 4, 2009.
4) Raivio, Y 2008, ‘The Broker - A Solution for Global Mobile Services’, Proceedings of the ICIN 2008 - the 11th International Conference on Services, Enablers and Architectures Supporting Business Models for a New Open World, Bordeaux, France, October 20 - 23, 2008.