Network as a Service
CAMARA and CableLabs: Transforming Networks With Open Source API Solutions
Key Points
- CableLabs’ contributions to the CAMARA project align with the GSMA Open Gateway Initiative, ensuring the standardization of open source APIs.
- Network as a Service, a focus area within CableLabs’ Technology Vision, includes the development of Quality by Design and Quality on Demand APIs.
- Open source collaboration on network APIs will drive the industry forward.
CableLabs is at the forefront of innovation for the broadband industry. One new area where this is especially true is in our work developing Network as a Service (NaaS) APIs. As part of this initiative, CableLabs actively contributes to CAMARA, an open source project hosted by Linux Foundation.
All of CableLabs’ contributions to CAMARA are part of our NaaS initiative. NaaS allows network operators to expose previously unavailable features to application developers via open source APIs. Alignment with the industry means CableLabs can not only utilize open source APIs, but we can help drive new APIs and adoption from multiple network operators.
The end goal is straightforward: Creating happier end users by making applications perform better across all types of networks.
What Is CAMARA, and Who Contributes to It?
CAMARA focuses on defining, developing and testing APIs that allow interaction with a service provider's network. The project is closely aligned with the GSMA Open Gateway Initiative for the development, publishing and testing of these open source APIs.
Contributors to the CAMARA community include network operators, mobile carriers and application developers. CAMARA aims to simplify APIs that interact with a service provider by abstracting the complexity of the network away. This allows developers to create applications that interact with a service provider's network without needing to understand which access network is being used or the inner workings and complexities of a mobile, PON or DOCSIS®️ networks.
Rather than develop solutions for our members in a silo, by contributing to CAMARA, CableLabs helps provide a path to adoption across a broader ecosystem. CAMARA’s open source approach enables rapid development of network-based APIs for companies within the industry.
CableLabs’ Contributions to CAMARA APIs
The CAMARA APIs align with the work that CableLabs is doing to help improve networks and make APIs more accessible to a broader range of developers, both within and outside a network operator.
Quality on Demand APIs: CableLabs contributes to multiple CAMARA projects, starting with expanding the CAMARA Quality on Demand (QoD) APIs to include the QoS profile. This allows an application to set target minimum thresholds for network performance including throughput, latency, packet loss and jitter. You can read more about this in our QoD blog post.
Network Access Management APIs: The CAMARA Network Access Management APIs are also something that CableLabs contributes to. These APIs allow for an application to interact with network operator-provided equipment in the home. The initial scope of the Network Access Management APIs is to allow actions such as rebooting a device or managing a Wi-Fi network.
Edge Cloud: CableLabs also contributes to CAMARA’s Edge Cloud project. This project allows for customers to discover the closest edge cloud zone to a given device for improved application performance.
Quality by Design: Working closely with the Connectivity Insights group at CAMARA, CableLabs is developing a new API that takes Quality on Demand a step further. Quality by Design (QbD) defines network requirements and enables an application to communicate its network KPIs — throughput, latency, jitter, packet loss — to a network operator. The network operator can then determine the cause of the network performance issues and suggest corrective action.
How Do CAMARA APIs Become Available?
Twice a year, CAMARA rolls up all of these API projects into what it calls a meta-release. The fall 2024 meta-release — the first from CAMARA — is now available.
Although the next meta-release isn’t planned until spring 2025, contributions to CAMARA are ongoing. In fact, APIs are even released between meta-releases. CableLabs’ QbD API, which didn’t make the fall release, is expected in the coming months. At that point, it will be tagged at a certain version to also be included in the spring 2025 meta-release.
Once released, APIs are available for anyone to download and use immediately.
Engage With Us on CAMARA Projects
Read more about the CAMARA open source project on their website and join the project on GitHub. If you are a CableLabs member or vendor, you can also join the Network as a Service (NaaS) working group. The more who contribute, the better the industry gets as a whole.