The telco operators really need to ask themselves how it is that in over 30 years of attempting to expose the telco network to developers, not one single attempt has succeeded.

- IN - the "intelligent network"

- AIN - the advanced intelligent network

- SIP/SDP app servers

- JAIN app servers

- 4G SCEF (service capability exposure)

- 5G NEF (network exposure)

- 5G AF (application function)

- CAMARA

I've probably omitted half a dozen more.

My diagnosis is that the telcos have nothing that developers want and plenty that they don't want. For example, no one is crying out for low level access to the 5G network slicing function and they're definitely not in a hurry to tie their ability to make money to whether they can integrate with some telco's billing system.

Often times a telco will throw up a slide that has, say, a picture of a robot or car using some nifty feature of the 5G network -predictable latency, say- and suggest that developers could use the network for these types of applications. Do you imagine that a FANUC or a Tesla would seriously tie their fortunes to whether some AT&T person would let them get a few bytes across the network? Practically, no way.

There is a demand from developers for telco services, but it is at the level of making API calls to send SMS or make calls. Twilio made good money out of it while the telcos were not looking, or perhaps less charitably, while they were so tied up in whether this SIP header or Diameter PDU should be allowed into their hallowed network that they didnt realize that the world had passed them by.