This week’s CPaaSAA Telco API Working Group felt like a natural wrap-up of an active first half of the year — with several important initiatives now taking concrete shape.
From Working Group Discussions to Real Workshops
One of the biggest outcomes from H1 is the development of the new Network API workshop initiative together with thinkshop.
What makes this especially interesting is that thinkshop itself actually emerged as a by-product of the Working Group discussions and ecosystem collaboration around Network APIs. Over months of conversations — both during WG sessions and offline — a recurring challenge kept surfacing:
the industry has made enormous technical progress, but many organizations still struggle to move from pilots and demos toward scalable enterprise adoption.
That realization ultimately evolved into both the workshop model and the creation of thinkshop itself — which is honestly worth celebrating as a tangible ecosystem outcome from the Working Group.
The workshop format is intentionally practical. Rather than another conference panel or theoretical brainstorm, it focuses on working sessions where operators, CPaaS providers, enterprise stakeholders, developers, and commercial ecosystem partners collaborate around:
- real use cases,
- adoption blockers,
- ecosystem dependencies,
- and scalable business models.
The next major step is now to begin running these workshops in the market, preferably face to face with real enterprises.
Building the Ecosystem Map
Another major focus area is the ongoing research work being led by Andrew Collinson. Through extensive conversations across operators, CPaaS providers, analysts, developers, standards bodies, and enterprise stakeholders, the project is evolving into something the industry has often lacked: a clearer ecosystem map.
With operators, aggregators, hyperscalers, CPaaS platforms, AI players, developers, and enterprise stakeholders all playing overlapping roles, there is still significant confusion around how the ecosystem actually fits together — and where value creation happens.
The research aims to bring more structure and clarity to that landscape, with first outputs expected around DTW Ignite and broader findings continuing toward CASA26 later this year. The work also connects closely with CPaaSAA’s wider Intelligent Engagement strategy.
Looking Ahead: DTW Ignite, CASA26 and New Leadership
The session also welcomed Kunal Shukla from Vonage as new co-chair of the Working Group.
With both MWC Shanghai and DTW Ignite approaching next month, quickly followed by CASA26 in September, the overall mood of the session was positive:
the ecosystem is gradually becoming more aligned, more practical, and increasingly focused on creating measurable enterprise outcomes around Network APIs.
A big thank you as well to the leadership team behind the Working Group — Adnan Saleem (Radisys), Courtney Latta (now thinkshop), and Luka Smacki (Vonage) — who have helped shape many of these discussions and initiatives throughout H1.
I've spent my career in IT and telecoms building bridges, from the early days of cloud communications to today's reset around APIs, CPaaS and AI.
As Founding Partner of The Next Cloud and CPaaSAA, I help telcos, CPaaS players and AI-native scaleups work out where they fit in the AI era, through strategy, ecosystem building and events.
My view: the value is moving from platforms to outcomes, and real innovation comes from ecosystems, not incumbents acting alone.
Based in Amsterdam, usually somewhere else.
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