Smartphones have incredible capabilities now compared with a few years ago. You can create entire apps in minutes using AI. Call someone who speaks another language, and your words are translated nearly immediately. Point your phone camera at a leaky sink and ask for help, and within minutes you’re an amateur plumber. 

But despite all the advances in AI and devices, some aspects of the mobile experience are disappointing. Network security is too primitive — one-time passwords feel so 10 years ago — and connections are spotty. Fraud is pervasive. Developers can’t take advantage of new opportunities in the shift to 5G.

Vonage is working to change that, helping enterprises and developers access advanced network capabilities that could transform the way we use technology. As the connective tissue between developers, enterprises, and network operators, Vonage helps build new experiences and premium features for mobile users.

The goal? Extend the Vonage platform to create a new mobile ecosystem that benefits everyone — from hyperscalers to developers to Fortune 500 companies.

With that infrastructure in place, new possibilities are quickly unlocked. What if you could quietly verify customers without making them jump through hoops? What if you knew where your customers are located and if they’re available to chat? What if you could shut down scammers almost immediately? 

This is how Vonage changes the game. The company made its name 25 years ago introducing digital voice technology to the world, freeing people from the restrictions and high prices of landline phone systems. Now, Vonage has shifted to an equally ambitious mission: providing the technologies for the next era of AI, apps, and connectivity. And in the process, reviving a telecommunications industry struggling with profit pressures and slow growth.

The opportunities are immense, but pushing an entire industry forward isn’t easy. You can’t make big moves without alignment from network operators, developers, hyperscalers, and others, all of whom are consumed with the demands of their own businesses. It’s like trying to pick a destination on a map when everyone is endlessly paving the roads and fixing the cars.

Vonage has had an eye on the horizon since it was acquired by communications giant Ericsson in 2022. The opportunities — and the problems — were clear:

• The world is moving into advanced 5G and 6G systems with faster speeds and open interfaces

• There is significant unrecognized value in telecom networks, and making them open and more programmable will usher in a golden age of development 

• Developers have numerous constraints — too many carriers with unique requirements, too many complicated systems — and can’t do big things

The key to moving forward, Vonage realized, was network APIs. Those small bits of code act like digital bridges, connecting and sharing network capabilities across software systems. When developers plug them into apps and other products, they can build next-gen features like speed on demand, speed tiering, and edge compute discovery.

For network APIs to succeed, three things need to happen:

1. Telecom operators make them available

2. A company aggregates them on a standardized platform (Aduna Global, a joint venture between major telcos, works with Vonage on this)

3. A company like Vonage offers them to developers and enterprises along with support to build new experiences (think seamless fraud prevention, live events, and geo-location services)

Network APIs give app developers and enterprises access to network functions that they couldn’t easily get otherwise. Without them, developers would have to make specific changes for every app on every network — a costly and time-consuming roadblock. 
 
With Vonage Network APIs, a company can verify that users are legitimate without having them type in a password or get a code. A bank gets flagged if someone calls customer support with a stolen SIM card. A gaming app could instantly request more bandwidth or lower latency. A live event gets seamless coverage worldwide.

Network APIs unlock premium connectivity business models — especially as agentic AI enters the picture. The technology has the potential to create new revenue streams for businesses and accelerate network monetization across the entire ecosystem. And that future is what has Vonage so excited. The company wants to become the world’s largest provider of network APIs, coordinating with carriers, aggregators, and developers to build increasingly complex network functionality into applications.

Network APIs also factor heavily into the future of communications and contact center tools. As contact centers use more agentic technologies, for example, using network APIs for authentication and other antifraud capabilities can improve both the customer experience and the bottom line.

The market potential is enormous. Technology research and advisory group Omdia forecasts that overall network API revenue will soar to $10.5 billion in 2030 from $830 million this year. Much of that growth will come from antifraud and subscriber identity deployments.

Raul Castanon, senior research analyst at 451 Research, part of S&P Global, says that 62% of the global mobile network operators in his 5G network infrastructure survey plan to deploy at least one instance of network APIs by the end of this year. Vonage is at the center of that growth, he said.

The majority of enterprises use or plan to use network APIs within the next 12 months, according to analysts at IDC. “Operators and enterprises are showing strong interest in network APIs, but scaled adoption will depend on how clearly use cases, pricing, security, and developer experience come together,” wrote IDC analyst Masarra Mohamed in a June report.

Vonage already notched a major win last year when it became the first to launch Silent Authentication and SIM Swap across all the major U.S. carriers. That opened the door to developers to build advanced fraud detection abilities directly into applications with a green light from carriers.

The cost of cybercrime is skyrocketing. In the U.S. alone, nearly $21 billion in losses were reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation last year — up from $16 billion the previous year. Sensing the urgency, Vonage is especially focused on development of its fraud prevention network APIs this year.

“U.S. carriers don’t move as one unless the value proposition is absolutely compelling,” wrote Rob Kurver, an industry veteran and founder of CPaaSAA, a communications industry group connecting network operators, developers, and others. Getting the major operators in a country to align is ideal because customers get the same technologies in the same apps, no matter what network they use. 

“Across the developer community, everybody's excited about the fact that now they have the same set of APIs that can be used across all the different carriers,” Chung Hung Lee, head of innovation for AT&T Business Products, told Light Reading. “Developers have this desire to code once and their code can be used everywhere.”

For Vonage, the goal is to shape an entire category. The company is pushing for a market with open systems, platforms, and technologies, creating a flywheel effect of momentum around what it calls “network-powered solutions.” That helps networks, companies, and developers collaborate and innovate at hyperscale. Working together, the industry realizes the full potential of AI, 5G and 6G technologies. 

There’s more urgency when you consider the growing demands for bandwidth and connectivity. AI is already complicating networks and adding pressure to the world’s computing infrastructure. Governments worldwide are now describing 5G and 6G as critical infrastructure and strategic assets.

If Vonage succeeds, the benefits ripple across the industry, with more revenue going to telcos and developers alike. 

But to start, Vonage needs to prove the value of the ecosystem that it envisions. More operators need to understand the profit potential, and more companies need to see the benefits to them. Finally, more developers need to understand what network APIs can do and how to implement them.

Companies and developers are starting to get on board, particularly as 6G begins to roll out. Already, customers such as Freenow by Lyft, Persona, and Lydia have signed up for the Vonage fraud detection and prevention technologies, with more on the way.

This convergence of technology and opportunity is shaping the future of connectivity in ways that are just starting to crystallize. How will the thinking change a year from now, or five years from now? That's the shift that Vonage is leading, and banking on an outcome that benefits entire industries.