| |May 20189CIOReviewof crowd sourcing of ideas through delegated R&D but also exposes the risk of loss of control, security risks and potentially the risk of loss of a quantum of revenue to competition.When it comes to the question of `who' the mobile operators have opened their APIs to, there is a clear difference between more ma-ture markets and regions like Africa or Southern Asia. In recent years, mobile operators like Telefonica or Deutsche Telekom in Europe have decided to shift from a `long-tail' approach (opening their consumer-oriented APIs to all start-ups and developers) to a `short-tail' approach (targeting larger B2B internet play-ers through customized APIs), usu-ally working in parallel with aggre-gators like Clickatell or Twilio to open their consumer APIs to start-ups and small developers.Telcos have long been grappling with the issue of the assets that they should be exposing as APIs. The market sees huge value in Telco sub-scriber data and the usage patterns. As per GSMA survey of develop-ers and start-ups, the most useful local operator APIs are messaging (SMS, USSD), billing (direct op-erator billing), mobile money and location APIs.API charging model that Telcos have successfully embraced ranges between direct customers charging for API consumption on one end of the spectrum to indirect charging model on the other. Intermediate charging models such as use of API access as an upsell opportunity or revenue generation through partners or affiliates are also being used suc-cessfully by the TelcosAPI Monetization Strategies by TelcosAs mentioned above, direct mon-etization strategy has been success-fully leveraged by the Telcos where the potential consumers saw value in paying for the date assets exposed by the Telco. In-app Rich communica-tion services offered by AT&T are one such example.Globe, Philippines uses a free-mium monetization model with free sign-up and 1,000 PHP (21 USD) worth of free API credit valid for one month, after which Globe applies a mixed volume-based and revenue-sharing model. On the other end of the spectrum is an indirect charging model where API usage is free but it is tied to revenue generation by the consuming application. Telcos have long been grappling with the issue of the assets that they should be exposing as APIs
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