From Network Signals to Enterprise Outcomes — And Why Startups Need More Love

At the GSMA Open Gateway Summit during MWC Barcelona this week, one comment stuck with me.

“We need to talk less about APIs and more about the problems we want to solve.”

That line came from Irene Bernal of Telefónica, and it captured a shift that could be felt across the entire day.

I loved hearing that.

At the CPaaS Acceleration Alliance, we’ve been advocating exactly this for the past year — running working groups, roundtables and industry sessions focused on moving the conversation from APIs to real business outcomes.

But we don’t often hear major telcos say it so clearly on stage.

And that matters.

For years, the conversation around Network APIs has been dominated by technology: how many APIs exist, how they are standardized, and which network capabilities they expose.

But the industry is finally starting to ask a different question.

What outcomes do enterprises actually want?

The Industry’s Big Ambition

Several speakers at the summit framed this transition clearly.

Neelam Sandhu, CMO at Vonage, spoke about what she called a BHAG — a Big Hairy Audacious Goal — for the mobile industry: enabling operators to drive the next wave of digital transformation in the AI era.

Mobile networks already generate incredibly rich signals — identity, location, device context, quality of service, and edge intelligence. When those signals are exposed through standardized APIs, they become programmable capabilities that developers and enterprises can build on.

As Anthony Bartolo of Aduna illustrated in one of the sessions:

Network signals → APIs → Enterprise outcomes

The signals exist in the network.
APIs expose them.
But enterprises ultimately care about the outcomes those capabilities enable.

Or, as Nicolai Schaettgen of Match-Maker Ventures put it bluntly during his talk:

“Nobody buys parameters. Workflows buy guarantees.”

Fraud prevention.
Identity verification.
Trusted location.
Guaranteed connectivity for critical applications.

These are the kinds of outcomes enterprises actually care about.

But here’s the uncomfortable reality.

For all the excitement around Open Gateway, very few players in the ecosystem are actually making meaningful money from Network APIs yet.

The ambition is there.
The technology is largely there.

But the commercial flywheel hasn’t really started spinning.

Part of the problem is a classic supply–demand mismatch.

Telcos are building and exposing APIs.

But most enterprises don’t yet know what to demand.

They understand their business problems — fraud, reliability, customer experience, operational efficiency. What they don’t yet understand is how network capabilities could solve those problems, or even that those capabilities exist.

So the industry finds itself in a strange situation:

Suppliers are waiting for demand.
Buyers don’t know what to ask for.

Where Things Are Starting to Click

There is one area where the model is beginning to work.

Fraud prevention and identity.

The explosion in SIM-swap attacks and authentication fraud has created a very clear enterprise problem. Companies urgently need better ways to verify identity, secure transactions, and protect their customers.

One example discussed at the summit was the Concept Platform initiative from Deutsche Telekom and LotusFlare, which starts exactly where innovation should start: with the problem.

Enterprises need stronger authentication.
They need trusted identity signals.
They need better fraud prevention.

Only then does the conversation move toward how network APIs can help solve those problems.

Problem first. Solution later.

And in the AI future, this becomes even more important.

As autonomous agents begin acting on behalf of users — triggering workflows, authorizing transactions, interacting with digital services — the need for trusted identity and network guarantees becomes even greater.

Agents will need more signals, better signals, and stronger guarantees from the network layer.

That’s where telecom networks can become part of the trust infrastructure of the AI era.

Startups like Shush are already beginning to show traction in this space. After two years of development, their Sherlock platform is gaining momentum by using network signals to enable silent authentication and reduce fraud risks.

Working with platforms like Twilio gives them access to the global developer ecosystem.

And during the summit, both Meta and Google spoke about exploring how network APIs could strengthen identity and trust across their platforms.

This is how the ecosystem should work.

Networks provide signals.
Platforms provide reach.
Startups turn capabilities into solutions.

But we need many more examples like this.

Because beyond fraud and authentication — what Neelam described as Horizon 1 — the industry still has a long way to go.

Horizon 2: The Real Growth Opportunity

The next wave of opportunities revolves around capabilities such as Quality on Demand and location APIs.

These could unlock entirely new applications across industries — aviation, drones, media, gaming, logistics, and industrial operations.

But today we are still at the very beginning.

That became clear during the closing panel of the Open Gateway Summit, where I moderated a discussion on aviation use cases with Air Europa, Turk Telekom, and Vonage.

Airlines operate in an extremely complex environment. Connectivity problems on the ground can quickly translate into delays, operational disruption, and unhappy passengers.

Reliable connectivity between aircraft, crew, and ground operations is mission-critical.

Capabilities like Quality on Demand could allow airlines to dynamically request guaranteed connectivity for specific operational workflows — during aircraft turnaround, live diagnostics, or coordination between ground teams.

At the same time, Turk Telekom demonstrated how similar capabilities could support drone operations, emergency response, and real-time aerial video streams.

These are compelling use cases.

But they also reveal the challenge.

Airlines don’t want solutions that work on one network or in one country. They need capabilities that work everywhere they operate.

And today those capabilities are still largely experimental.

The technology is emerging.
The potential use cases are clear.

But the demand side of the market is still forming.

The Missing Layer: Solution Partners

Earlier that week I moderated a Network API roundtable at the GSMA Insights Hub.

I started with a simple question.

Who represents the supply side?

Many hands went up.

Who represents the demand side?

Very few.

Somewhere between the API catalogue and real enterprise adoption, something is missing.

During the discussion the group converged on one concept:

Solution Partners.

These are specialists who sit between network capabilities and enterprise workflows — translating APIs into real solutions.

Not resellers.
Not generic integrators.

But domain experts who solve specific industry problems.

One participant from Orange made the point clearly: operators cannot expect enterprise adoption to happen automatically. The ecosystem needs partners who understand industry problems and can turn network capabilities into real services.

In many cases, those solution partners will be startups.

Why Startups Need More Love

This is where the telecom industry still struggles.

Telcos — and many CPaaS providers — engage with startups through corporate venture capital or acquisitions.

But those mechanisms operate later in the lifecycle.

Network APIs are still in the phase where use cases are being invented.

That requires experimentation. New ideas. Small teams willing to try things that might fail.

Startups don’t just need capital.

They need access to networks, enterprise problems, partners, and distribution.

In other words, they need an ecosystem designed to support early-stage innovation.

And that ecosystem largely doesn’t exist yet.

The Next Step

Over the past few days at MWC Barcelona, together with the Sandbox Industries leadership team — Matt Downs (CEO) and Kyle Nel (CTO) — I’ve had more than a dozen great conversations with telcos and communications leaders about how to accelerate innovation around Network APIs.

One thing became very clear.

The industry understands the challenge.

The technology is ready.

But if Network APIs are going to become a real platform economy, the ecosystem needs to actively support the builders.

That means creating mechanisms that combine network access, domain expertise, go-to-market channels, and early-stage capital to help solution partners turn ideas into real businesses.

Encouragingly, there is strong appetite across the ecosystem to make this happen.

Together with Sandbox, we’ve been exploring how to build exactly that kind of industry-driven acceleration model — one that connects startups, operators, and enterprises to turn network capabilities into real solutions.

The missing piece of the Network API puzzle now has a name.

Solution partners.

And if the telecom industry truly wants to unlock the value of programmable networks, it might be time to give those builders a lot more love.

Watch this space.