It is expected that the communication fabric and the way network services are consumed will
evolve towards 6G, building on and extending capabilities of 5G and Beyond networks. Service
APIs,Operation APIs,Network APIs are different aspects of the network exposure, which
provides the communication service providers a way to monetize the network capabilities.
Allowing the developer community to use network capabilities via APIs is an emerging area for
network monetization. Thus,it is important that network exposure caters for the needs of
developers serving different markets, e.g., different vertical industry segments.
The conceptof “Network Applications” is introduced following this idea. It is defined asa set of
services that provides certain functionalities to verticals and their associated use cases.
The Network Applicationsis more than the introduction of new vertical applications that have
interaction capabilities. It refers to the need for a separate middleware layer to simplify the
implementation and deployment of vertical systems on a large scale. Specifically, third parties or
network operators can contribute to Network Applications, depending on the level of interaction
and trust.
In practice, a Network Applicationuses the exposed APIs from the network and can either be
integrated with (part of) a vertical application or expose its APIs (e.g., service APIs) for further
consumption by vertical applications.
This paper builds on the findings of the white paper released in 2022. It targets to go into details
about the implementations of the two major Network Applications class: “aaS” and hybrid
models. It introduces theNetwork Applicationsmarketplaceand put the light on technological
solution like CAMARA project, as part of the standard landscape.
