-      Following the news that 12 global telcos have completed their equity investments in Ericsson subsidiary and 50:50 joint venture (JV) Aduna;

-      Emma Mohr-McClune, Chief Analyst – Telecoms Practice, Technology at GlobalData, offers her view:

By : Islam Tawfik

“This JV, which first went operational in September 2024, marks a pivotal moment for the telecommunications industry. By uniting some of the largest telecom operators under a single, cooperative contract framework, the stage is set for unprecedented collaboration and innovation in the realm of network Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

“In an extraordinary demonstration of purpose for the telco industry, the Aduna JV’s carrier partners AT&T, Bharti Airtel, Deutsche Telekom, KDDI, Orange, Reliance Jio, Singtel, Telefonica, Telstra, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Vodafone, are taking a significant step towards the standardization and widespread adoption of telco network APIs in tandem with Ericsson.

“This is the first global initiative of its kind and a literal industry first, enabling multiregional contracting – and on a reasonably global basis given a few JV coverage gaps, most notably in Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Africa – under the auspices of a single contract and business relationship. Aduna can operate on a non-exclusive basis, presenting a very low opportunity cost for its owner telcos and ecosystem of associated members, including e&, Bouygues Telecom, Free, CelcomDigi, Softbank, and NTT DOCOMO. Members will be able to develop their network exposure business on this as well as other platforms and there is also nothing to prevent them from operating adjacent contracts through other channels, such as aggregators.

“Aduna targets customers such as hyperscalers, communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) providers, systems integrators, independent software providers, and other telcos. Critically, it will not sell directly to enterprises, leaving that market both to ecosystem partners and the enterprise business units of its owner members. Ericsson holds 50% of the JV, with the telco operator partners splitting the other 50% shareholding. Google Cloud is the charter hyperscale customer, and Ericsson subsidiary Vonage is its charter CPaaS customer.”