- Ericsson has finalized its network API venture with 12 operators
- Analyst Leonard Lee sees the venture as a global API exchange
- They won't provide services but expose the 5G plumbing underneath
Ericsson has finalized the foundation of Aduna Global — its joint API venture with 12 global operators, which was first announced last September.
The 50:50 venture between the Nordic telecom vendor and worldwide operators such as AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile and Verizon, among others, has added other partners to its roster, including Google Cloud, Microsoft and Wipro. The venture, however, maintains the 50:50 ownership between Ericsson and its carrier partners.
T-Mobile CTO John Saw described the "fully operational" venture as a "major milestone" on T-Mobile's programmable network journey. "Aduna is on a mission to unify network APIs globally, giving developers the power to create apps that work seamlessly across networks and borders," the CTO said on LinkedIn.
"Aduna will be helping to shape the future of standardized network API's for 5G networks," said David Jaeger, a business development manager at Vonage, which he described as a "technology partner" within the Aduna ecosystem.
CAMARA-based APIs enable third-party applications to use the 5G network. Operators, however, need to lay bare these network APIs and make them simple for developers to work with. Ericsson does already offer some network APIs through its extremely expensive purchase of Vonage in 2021. In fact, former Vonage COO Anthony Bartolo was named as Aduna’s CEO in January this year.
So what’s going on with the JV then? Leonard Lee, executive analyst at neXt Curve laid out his views on Aduna and forthcoming network APIs in an email to Fierce Network.
“In my view, Aduna Global’s emerging role as a global API exchange has the potential to be catalytic in scaling the network exposure and services market at a multi-regional scope and level, possibly globally,” the analyst wrote. “It has the potential to address the global brokering of trust that is foundational to security and the integrity of communications and commerce.”
About those APIs
Lee said that network APIs and the services that underly it are “not intrinsically trustworthy” or “regulatory compliant depending on geography context.” However, Aduna has the chance to fix some or all of these issues, he added.
Lee said that the network APIs would allow features like fraud prevention services. Aduna would not deliver the services, but enable the APIs — or the plumbing underneath — that allows services like fraud prevention to be delivered.
“Network API’s tend to be low-level mechanisms for exposing network services and data,” he said.
Lee notes that Aduna Global ecosystem partners, such as JT Global, Vonage and AWS, have already announced — if not already launched — fraud prevention services that leverage relevant security and authentication-related network APIs.
“You won’t likely see Aduna Global offer a fraud prevention service,” he added. “You need to look at Vonage, Infobip, Tech Mahindra and the like to offer these solutions that will likely be accessible to developers through APIs.”
“The industry is behind in understanding Aduna and network APIs,” Lee noted, referencing multiple neXt Curve pieces on the subject of Aduna. Quite possibly, we will be hearing more from the global API exchange in the near future.
This story was updated with additional quotes and content on July 30, 2025, at 4:15 p.m. ET.