Hello everyone!
I am a telecommunications student from the Helsinki University of Technology currently in the painful process of doing my Master's Thesis. The subject of the Thesis are Telecommunications APIs and their feasibility.
The idea behind the telecommunications API(Application Programming Interface) is to open the functionalities of the core telecommunications network such as making&receiving phone calls, sending and receiving SMS/MMS - messages, retrieving location data etc. to 3rd party developers that can incorporate them into applications, web pages, mashups etc. This means that users can for example send information retrieved from a webpage directly to a phone via SMS when certain conditions are filled.
There are a few companies trying this kind of an approach to opening the closed 'walled-garden' of telco resources, notably Ribbit ( www.ribbit.com ), Telenor Playground ( playground.telenor.com ) and Orange Partner ( www.orangepartner.com ). All of these have different business ideas, they offer different APIs and different levels of openness, so it is very much an unformed idea at the moment. These companies offer things in many forms and there is no consensus on what people really want.
As a part of my Master's Thesis I am interested in the opinions of you, the developer, whether you are just starting to build your first application / web page or are a solid professional with years of experience. What do you think of this idea? Is it worth doing? Which APIs would interest you? What kind of business model would you accept?
It takes only a couple of minutes to fill out the questionnaire, and all help is very much appreciated!
Jaakko Kestil�
TKK Telecommunications Management Laboratory
PS. If you guys know relevant forums/people that might have interest in this query and would spare a few minutes of their time to help a student out, please hit me back! All help is appreciated!
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cExNb3lKOTNYeDVLTXFTRHBXcEhCZHc6MA..