AT&T Encouraging Standards to Assist Mobile App Developers

fact sheet Vendor: AT&T (www.att.com) Vendor's Information: About AT&T Mobile App Development About AT&T

The number of mobile Internet users is expected to approach 2 billion by 2013, according to Juniper Research, but fragmentation among devices, operating systems, and networks threatens to keep the mobile Internet from enjoying the success of the desktop Internet.

Mobile Web applications and widgets are gaining in popularity as the devices and access become more affordable and as network services and bandwidth become available, but the fragmentation among hardware, software, and carrier networks makes it more difficult for developers who want to get their applications, quite literally, into the hands of mobile Internet users.

Back in February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, AT&T President and CEO, Mobility and Consumer Markets, Ralph de la Vega compared the fragmentation in the mobile applications space to 2002, when wireless carriers offered SMS to consumers without interoperability. The fragmentation, de la Vega said in his keynote address, threatens to stifle innovation.

AT&T is one of several players in the mobile communications industry promoting common frameworks and standards that will create a common experience for developers creating mobile applications and widgets. The hope is that developers will be able to write the code for their applications once and have them work on different devices and mobile networks, rather than creating different versions of their code for each network, operating system, and device.

BONDI is a set of secure APIs for mobile browsers or widget runtimes (WRT). It is supported by the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP) standards organization, of which AT&T is a member. OMTP's goal is to have mobile phone operators, handset manufacturers, and companies that deliver mobile device software working together to promote cross-platform operability.

BONDI addresses the device angle of the cross-platform operability issue. It provides a consistent and secure Web services interface that can be used by developers across multiple device platforms. BONDI exposes key handset features to developers creating mobile applications, which will let the developers add additional functionality to the apps.

Security is an important part of the BONDI project. The APIs will be engineered to prevent fraudulent and malicious activity by blocking unauthorized access to functions or sensitive personal information.

BONDI-compliant Web Runtime Environments co-exist with other runtime environments that exist in devices, such as the native operating system and APIs, Java Virtual Machine, and other runtimes such as Flash. Runtime environments that implement application security based upon trust and policies can be trusted by the device OS. The trusted runtime is responsible for securing application access to device APIs.

The BONDI 1.0 approved release is now available at the BONDI Web site (bondi.omtp.org). The site is a one-stop shop for developers looking for information about BONDI. It includes a BONDI wiki, BONDI API specifications, requirements specifications, the SDK, source code, bug tracking, feedback, and change requests.

If BONDI is looking to defragment the device piece of the mobile application ecosystem, then a project called OneAPI is taking a similar approach for carrier services.

OneAPI is a GSMA-led initiative to defragment the mobile application market with a commonly supported, lightweight, Web-friendly API, developers can use to access network capabilities like charging, messaging, location, and user context. GSMA selected Aepona as the OneAPI technology provider.

OneAPI can be accessed by client and server side technologies when required. For authentication and security reasons client APIs will not likely call the OneAPIs directly, but instead invoke a server-side API to make the call.

OneAPI can also work with OMTP's BONDI framework. BONDI includes a "wrapper" API that can be used to encapsulate a OneAPI call.

By providing access to network capabilities and information, regardless of the network operator, OneAPI will also make it easier for developers to write code once for applications that are deployed on multiple devices and networks.

Available OneAPIs include application originated SMS, the ability to define UDH parameters, RESTful and SOAP API, charging, data connection profile, subscriber profile, MMS, call control, device profile, and video (multimedia) call control.

By encouraging industry standards that make cross-platform interoperability a reality for mobile applications, BONDI and OneAPI hope to foster a new era of innovation among mobile app developers. With developers able to create applications for a broad swath of the mobile user base, network operators will be able to deliver new services and functionality to their customers.