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Developers care about protocols, standards, and specifications — a little. But it’s not what keeps them up at night.
Your average software engineer cares more about feature functionalities, performance, debugging, misconfigurations, and keeping infrastructure complexity under control.
If a given component of a technology stack doesn’t align to those goals, it rarely makes it into the developer’s “backlog,” the strategic tracker that monitors application features, enhancements, and fixes.
These home truths might have made leaders at the GSMA, an advocacy and lobbying organization for the mobile communications industry, anxious, because their Open Gateway initiative would be a hard to sell to the developer cognizenti.
The Open Gateway is a network technology that offers a standardized set of APIs that allow software engineers to access and assess telco carrier capabilities (such as location or security) across different operators.
Still not interested? No, we get it. It’s telco infrastructure, so who — apart from the TelCos — cares? But what if it positioned core telecom characteristics and capabilities as a programmable layer in the security stack? Oh, OK, developer-centric telecom connectivity analysis and Control-as-a-Service sound more interesting.
Instead of developers needing to speak 500 different “telco languages” for every installation across every world territory, the GSMA says its Open Gateway initiative offers tools that give developers a single universal language.
“Instead of developers needing to speak 500 different ‘telco languages’ for every installation across every world territory, the GSMA says its Open Gateway initiative offers tools that give developers a single universal language.”
Henry Calvert, head of networks & Open Gateway lead at GSMA, tells The New Stack this means that a mobile app built in London will work exactly the same way in Tokyo or New York — without the developer changing a single line of code.
“That’s the lens through which the GSMA Open Gateway initiative should be viewed,” Calvert says. “In the three years since unveiling plans, we now have the backing from more than 300 mobile networks across 85 operator groups, covering more than 80% of global mobile connections worldwide.
“The headline numbers suggest industry alignment — but the developer question is simpler: Does this translate into usable, production-ready capabilities exposed through APIs?”
At Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona, GSMA leaders predicted the industry will see the conversation shift from potential to practical implementation. The focus is moving beyond standards and scale towards real deployments, developer adoption, and measurable impact.
But what core developer functionalities are on offer here?
Calvert offers a real-world use case: Network API functions such as caller number verification and SIM swap detection expose operator-level signals that are difficult to replicate at the application layer.
Instead of relying solely on heuristics, developers can query the network to verify whether a number-device relationship is intact. From a practical standpoint, this is not about understanding 5G core architecture; it is all about integrating a stronger trust signal into an existing authentication or risk engine.
Developers can simulate complex scenarios — such as a SIM card being stolen or a user moving between cell towers — without having to perform mobile device management tasks for potentially thousands of physical phones. It’s a virtual world where they can break things safely, so they work perfectly in the real world.
“Viewed this way, Open Gateway positions telecom capabilities as another — we think pretty darn appealing — programmable layer in the security stack, sitting alongside functions from identity providers, device intelligence platforms, and fraud tooling specialists,” Calvert tells The New Stack. “Awareness of network APIs is growing, but awareness doesn’t equal adoption. Telecom terminology, policy models, and network behaviour remain unfamiliar territory for most software engineers. As with any platform shift, developer experience will be decisive.”
The Open Gateway team advocates for clean documentation, open-source API repositories such as CAMARA, and simple access to sandboxes and production environments. It also prefers software development kits (SDKs) in mainstream languages with a view to reinforcing the consistency factor championed by the initiative itself.
“Developers should not need to understand the nuances of every mobile network to build secure, intelligent digital experiences.”
Why the doubling up on standardization here? Because a telecoms standard agreed at the operator level does not always automatically translate into uniform runtime behavior. Latency characteristics, error handling, and service availability need to be reliable enough for developers to trust these APIs in production.
From the Greek word for “arched roof” (kamāra), which symbolizes an alliance of multiple entities under one vision, CAMARA is part of the Linux Foundation and the project works in close collaboration with the GSMA. It has been called the “engine room” for the GSMA Open Gateway initiative. Its mission is to define, develop, and test standardized APIs to bridge between complex telecom networks and applications.
Ranny Haiby, CTO of networking, edge, and access at the Linux Foundation, tells The New Stack that “Developers should not need to understand the nuances of every mobile network to build secure, intelligent digital experiences.”
“The GSMA Open Gateway, powered by the Camara open source project, makes it easy for developers who now use AI tools to discover and consume exciting services provided by the telco network,” Haiby says. “Our goal is to make network capabilities available across markets through open, standardized APIs and tooling that developers can trust.”
For the GSMA’s Calvert, the broader shift here is that connectivity is being repositioned as a programmable resource rather than passive infrastructure, making APIs become the bridge between telecom investment and what developers want to build.
“For developers building latency-sensitive services, fraud-resistant onboarding flows, or new real-time experiences, that opens design possibilities that previously sat outside their control. It also aligns with wider trends, i.e., automation, API-first architecture, and AI-assisted network operations, all of which aim to make increasingly complex infrastructure consumable through software abstractions.”
Calvert says that this whole effort is designed to offer pre-built security keys so developers don’t have to build their own locks. This ensures that when an app asks the network for a piece of data, it’s done with the highest level of privacy and security by default.
The GSMA says the next phase will hinge on operational discipline and genuine developer engagement. If network APIs deliver reliability, clarity, and measurable worth, Open Gateway could become a meaningful addition to the modern developer toolkit. If not, it risks remaining an industry-led vision that never fully translates into developer-grade tools.
