International telecoms provider Telenor has become the first network partner to join the BlueVia API platform. BlueVia, created by Telefónica in 2010, helps developers create apps and web services that take advantage of Telefonica’s network APIs. It’ll now make Telenor APIs available on BlueVia as well, giving developers the ability to reach over 450 million customers.
The enhanced BlueVia platform will focus on mobile payments, letting customers pay for content and in-app purchases on their mobile phone bills, although the combined Telenor and Telefónica offering is soon expected to include other APIs that target different areas.
Rolv-Erik Spilling, Senior Vice President and Deputy Head of Telenor Digital Services, said “Telenor joins the BlueVia platform as an equal partner, and we extend an invitation to other global telcos to join us in this new way of working together. BlueVia has been widely praised for its innovative approach and for providing developers with a platform to build applications and mobile web services that will run on BlueVia’s own infrastructure. We want our fellow telcos to understand the benefits of joining BlueVia in helping to monetize assets while simultaneously making it easier for customers to purchase content and applications.”
Telenor and Telefónica will be working together to roll out the platform across their mobile customer bases. Telefonica has already signed global, framework agreements for direct-to-bill mobile payments with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Research in Motion in the past few months.
[BlueVia blog]