Mobile Provider APIs

by Kin Lane on 02/10/2011

As mobile phone adoption and usage continues to grow we are seeing a parallel growth in APIs to support the mobile browsing market.

Many API providers are seeing the majority of calls coming from mobile phones vs. web or desktop clients.

Another unnoticed area of mobile API growth is from mobile carriers themselves. Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T all provide developer APIs.

The Verizon Developer Community provides documentation, tools, support, resources and two API services:

Location API - Allows developers to create applications that use the subscriber's location as part of the delivery of their service.
Messaging API - Provides developers with a network based Messaging API service to offer interactive services to our customers using Mobile Originated (MO) andMobile Terminated (MT) messaging.

The Sprint Application Developer Program provides documentation, tools, support and go to market resources as well as six API services:

Geofence - Provides virtual perimeter services.
Location - Provides API for determining the location of a Sprint CDMA Device that is opted in to a developer's account.
Messaging - Provides a series of network messaging services.
Presence - A service to determine if a device is present on the Sprint cdma network.
UserManagement - A series of services to allow for dynamic user management.
iDen Content Uploader - A service meant to upload applications to iDen devices.

The AT&T Developer Program provides documentation, tools, support, resources, developer sandbox and seven API services:

SMS - A GSM protocols that allows the exchange of short text messages between mobile phone devices.
MMS - Extends SMS capabilities to include multimedia content.
WAP Push - A standard for application-layer network connectivity.
Terminal Location - Set of Location-based Services (LBS).
Device Capabilities - Services to identify the capabilities of an AT&T subscriber's mobile device.
Synaptic Storage as a Service - Storage based cloud computing.
Synaptic Compute as a Service - Server based cloud computing.

T-Mobile has a partner network with platform specific SDKs and resources, but no visible APIs for developers.

Mobile carriers see first hand, the growth and potential of the mobile Internet, it is logical for them to also identify that value of providing their own APIs for developers to build upon.

Primary the Mobile Provider APIs are all focused around services like location and messaging, however AT&T is already pushing into the cloud computing and storage space.

You will see more mobile providers launching APIs and more services from the existing Mobile Provider APIs in the near future.