GarciaPL Notes - Java and Others

On 29th January in European Center of Solidarność in Gdańsk were announced results of BIHAPI competition. First winner of competition was "CoSieStao" which allows users access to various types of information related with town/district where they live. Application was created by Paweł Konieczny and Piotr Martyniak. There were also awarded such applications like "Via CRM the first passenger relationship management in the world", "Poczytaj mi", "Stacz kolejkowy" and "IfCity". More information about competition and awarded applications can be found under www.bihapi.pl.

Competition partners :

Oracle Communication (technology partner), Capital City Warsaw, Gdańsk, Poznań, Poznańskie Centrum Superkomputerowo-Sieciowe, IQ Partners, Black Pearls, SpeedUp Group, Investin, Fundacja TechSoup, Orange Foundation, Fundacja Pracownia badań i innowacji społecznych Stocznia, Centrum Cyfrowe Fundacja Projekt: Polska, geecon.org, Gdański Park Naukowo-Techniczny, Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny w Poznaniu, Warsaw University of Technology, Międzynarodowe Targi Poznańskie.

BIHAPI Grand Prix

Recently in October, Orange with local authorities of towns such as Warsaw, Gdansk and Poznan, start new competition called BIHAPI (Business Intelligence Hackathon API) [1] which aims to stimulate creation of innovative applications, system and services built using API (Application Developer Interfaces). For every participant there is available about 81 API (including data cites of Warsaw, Gdansk, Poznan and Orange Telco API). More information about competition you can find under website [1].

Reference :
[1] BIHAPI

So! A new competition has arrived! It is called Orange API Hackathon! It is dedicated to developers and people with bright ideas about new applications, systems and services which must use one of the available Open Middleware Application Programming Interfaces which are provided by Orange and Town Hall of Warsaw (Find out where this town is! and Check Town Hall Website).

This contest is divided into two stages :

Stage 1) Collection of Abstracts (11 April 2013 - 3 June 2013)
Stage 2) Implementation and Selection (15 June May 2013 - 25 June 2013)

Awards :

- Grand Prize : invitation for one to Java One Conference 2013
- First Prize : summer internships in Orange Labs for 3 participants for 3 months


I think that very interesting and for some very useful information is that one of the partner of contest which is a IQ Partners SA is going to setting aside a pool of 500 000 PLN (about 120 000 Euros) to create a company with one or more winners of Orange API Hackathon.

Reference :
[1] Open Middleware Orange API Hackathon Contest Details
[2] Terms & Conditions of Contest [English]
[3] Terms & Conditions of Contest [Polish]
[4] Town Hall of Warsaw
[5] IQ Partners SA

In recently times appeared on Institute of Telecommunication (Instytut Łączności) website a new note from the meeting which was took place at 6th September 2012.

Business entities which were present : Institute of Telecommunication, Orange, Play, T-Mobile, Plus, MLife.

Discussed issues :

The following interfaces (APIs) will be standardized :

• SMS, MMS, USSD
• Click to call
• MNP
• Location
• Permission
• oAuth2
• Active Subscription
• RBT API, Voice Mail API etc.

I'm so sorry for my late in informing you about new information about great project called OpenAPI which was initiated by the Institute of Telecommunication (Instytut Łączności) and major telecom operators for instance Orange, Plus, T-Mobile and Play which cooperates in Poland.

Those business entities and Institute of Telecommunication signed a letter of intent which gave opportunity to participate in the project (OpenAPI) for others business entities.

Every company interested in this cooperation should contact with Jordi Mongay Batalla (email).




Reference :
[1] Institute of Communications (Instytut Łączności)
[2] Letter of Intent (pdf) [Polish]
[3] Home page of OpenAPI initiative [Polish/English]

In recent time Institute of Communications (Instytut Łączności) began work on create a common API for telecom operators in Poland such a Orange, Plus, T-Mobile and Play to unificate using of their network functionality for instance sending and receiving SMS/MMS/USSD, make phone calls, phone localization etc.

I think that this work of Institute of Communications and major telecoms in Poland, will help developers and small companies to reduce costs associated with the need to adopt their services to telecom networks in Poland.



Reference :
[1] Institute of Communications (Instytut Łączności)
[2] Statement of Institute of Communications (pdf) [Polish]
[3] Statement of Institute of Communications (pdf) [English]
[4] Home page of OpenAPI initiative [English]

A lot of open and neutral API (Application Programming Interface) have been created in recently years which were designed to facilitate access to the functionality of telecommunications networks.

Organizations 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) started joint work on assumptions of new service architecture called Open Service Architecture (OSA). Also Sun Microsystems designed specification of their own interface for telecommunication sector called Java APIs for Integrated Networks (JAIN).

Finally, organizations Parlay Group and ETSI with 3GPP focused joint efforts on designing unified interface Parlay/OSA for telecommunication sector which support concept of developing new service platform for telecoms.

Evolution of Application Programming Interfaces in Telecommunications

It all started with a process called convergence, which was initiated in the early 90' mainly by technical progress, when telecoms decided to implement in their internal systems intelligent platforms, which allowed them using it to provide integrated and innovative services. Highly simplified model is presented on picture below. Through this process was created a new 'technology branch' called Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

Due to this occurence were created many solutions which connect (mashup) internet technologies like the Internet, e-mails, digital maps e.g. with functionalities of mobile networks like voice and text services to finally get new products like SMS Gateway, protocols to transmission videos Video over IP (VIP) and sound Voice over IP (VoIP), multiline telephone systems PBX, protocol WAP, digital TV (DVH-B) and many many more. Also this process had a great impact on the assumptions of Telco 2.0.

Convergence

In result of synergy of telecommunication and IT sector occurred some new directions of development in future :

• Internet will become a new medium for transport of phone calls etc.
• Mobile networks gain hegemony in relation to fixed networks
• Band telecommunications networks will be dominated mainly by the movement ICT

Thanks to convergence, telecoms changed conception of creation services from strictly related with telecommunication to tools and solutions derived from IT sector.

Technologies in Telecommunications

Next post : New Application Programming Interfaces (API) in Telecommunications

(Telco 2.0 vol.3.)

Reference :
[1] Technologies of the future in telecommunications [PL]
[2] The development of telecommunications and mail in the information society [PL]

On my blog I would also write something about I am currently working on in MSc thesis. Surely I am not able to put all relevant information in one post, so you must be patient and just hold your breath ;)


The main topic of upcoming series of posts will be the explanation of mysterious acronym : Telco 2.0.

At the beginning, I will write a bit about historical background. What happened in the past in global economy and world of technology. How changed conception of the operation of telecoms. A few words about Web 2.0 and marketing concept "Long Tail".

In another post I will put some information about economic and law environment - legislative action in telecommunications sector, market challenges and finally implemented business model corresponding to those circumstences.

After this I will write about right service platform Telco 2.0 and how changed interfaces used by telecoms to nowadays and who made this change.

Some information about technical side of this service platform based on some examples.

Finally, I will place some prediction about how telecommunication market will change in the future using report IBM Telco 2015.



Reference:
[1] Orange Labs Telco 2.0 University
[2] Telco 2.0 Orange Blog
[3] STL Partners Telco 2.0 Initiative
[4] IBM Telco 2015 Five telling years, four future scenarios