Indonesian telcos to standardise open APIs across their ecosystems

Details: John Tanner; Category: Enterprise Ecosystems; 22 September 2025; 6579 views

Indonesian telcos Telkomsel, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and XLSmart officially launched an alliance on Friday that aims to accelerate standardization of security-focused open telco API protocols in Indonesia.

Under the Joint Telco API Alliance Initiative, all three telcos will adopt a unified telco API protocol based on the international CAMARA standard for open network APIs.

Telkomsel, Indosat and XLSmart said the alliance will enable easier, safer, and more inclusive integration between each operator’s ecosystem and various applications across Indonesia’s digital landscape.

CAMARA open APIs are supported by the GSMA Open Gateway initiative, which Telkomsel, Indosat, XL Axiata and Smartfren joined in February 2024.

While CAMARA open APIs in principle provide a standards-based approach to open telco APIs, developers have faced practical difficulties in leveraging the APIs one operator at a time rather than for lots of operators at once and at scale, which has led to global and regional initiatives such as Aduna – spearheaded and announced by Ericsson in September 2024, and launched in January – and the Bridge Alliance API Exchange (BAEx) launched in July 2024.

The alliance between Telkomsel, Indosat and XLSmart – which initially launched three Open Gateway APIs separately – aims to make that process easier for developers targeting the Indonesian market by enabling them to develop solutions for all three telcos at once.

The alliance plans to gradually launch six solutions based on the open API protocol, most of them focused on protecting customers against account hacking or fraud.

Features supported by the solutions include checking the active status of a number and customer registration; device validation and location verification; detecting suspicious SIM card activity to prevent number hijacking and account takeovers; verification of device ownership changes; and analysing data networks in real time to detect potential fraudulent fund transfers in business transactions.

“We believe this collaboration will open opportunities for the creation of new, impactful solutions while enhancing the competitiveness of Indonesia’s telecommunications industry in the digital era,” said Andrijanto Muljono, XLSmart’s director and chief enterprise strategic relationship officer, in a statement. “We hope the Telco API Alliance will serve as a catalyst for strategic collaborations in delivering cutting-edge digital services and driving new breakthroughs.”