O2 Litmus add to their APIs

Following on from our previous post on Vodafone’s promise to mobile application builders to create a dedicated channel to market and a billing system for their services, we’ve heard the news that O2 Litmus has released four new APIs that will allow developer to query everything from the users location, through to what type of device a customer is using, down to whether they have an ‘all you can eat’ mobile data bolt on provisioned on their account.

Rather than cloud the APIs meaning from consumers, O2 Litmus has used "Enabler" as a jargon free name for an API and explained in simple terms how the Enablers provide access to features of the O2 UK network and infrastructure in a secure and managed way. This allows consumers and the content industry to be better educated about what Smartpipe Enablers are the positive potential that they carry. Their jargon-free description of Enablers is as follows:

“Think of Enablers like "plugs" into the O2 UK network. With your permission, App Developers can use these Enablers to retrieve information that helps them to make more compelling services that are tailored to you.”

They then go on to list example uses for types of information an app could retrieve to customise the user experience. As with the Vodafone framework, this openness and transparency is welcome, as success is intimately dependent upon the quality – reliability and simplicity – of the user experience.

MEF will be publishing the results from its Smart Pipe Enablers Market Survey this summer and this will be followed by the first of several White Papers outlining the agreed Service Definitions for Enablers such as bulk SMS, premium billing, short code rental, age-verification, identity authentication and location look-ups amongst many others to work towards a coherent and co-ordinated approach to enablers that delivers cross-operator alignment, sustainable commercial models and regulation of smart pipe enabling services.