Skip to main content
BSS/OSS Academy
🗺️
Section 11.4

CAMARA

The Linux Foundation open-source project that defines, develops and tests the network APIs GSMA Open Gateway exposes — and how it differs from a standards body.

CAMARA is not a standards organisation. It is an open-source project hosted by the Linux Foundation, launched in 2022 by the GSMA and a group of operators and vendors, with one job: define, develop and test the network APIs that developers will actually call. Each API — Number Verification, SIM Swap, Device Location, Quality on Demand, and a growing list — is a public OpenAPI specification with reference code, a test plan and a release cycle, worked on in an open working group.

The relationship with GSMA Open Gateway is a division of labour, and worth stating plainly because the two names are used interchangeably in marketing: GSMA Open Gateway is the industry initiative — operator commitments, the federation model, the commercial framing. CAMARA is where the API definitions live and are versioned. An operator "launching Open Gateway APIs" is exposing CAMARA-defined APIs under the Open Gateway programme. Beneath both sits 3GPP, whose network exposure functions provide many of the capabilities CAMARA abstracts; others — SIM Swap, KYC Match — are answered from the operator's subscriber and BSS data rather than the network.

CAMARAAPI standard / framework

CAMARA APIs

What is it?

The open-source project, hosted by the Linux Foundation and launched in 2022 with the GSMA, that defines, develops and tests the network APIs Open Gateway exposes. Each API (Number Verification, SIM Swap, Device Location, Quality on Demand, and a growing list) is a public specification with reference code and a release process.

What problem does it solve?

Abstracts operator-specific network interfaces into developer-friendly APIs that behave identically on every network, so that an application does not need to know whose 5G core it is talking to.

What does it cover?

  • •API definitions in OpenAPI form, with test plans and release cycles
  • •A Sub Project per API, with cross-cutting Working Groups (Commonalities, Identity & Consent, Release Management), open to operators, vendors and developers
  • •The bridge between developer-facing APIs and the 3GPP network exposure functions beneath them

What does it NOT cover?

  • •Not a commercial or operator federation programme — that is GSMA Open Gateway.
  • •Not a standards body in the 3GPP or ETSI sense; it publishes open-source specifications, not formal standards.
  • •Does not cover BSS: ordering, billing and partner settlement sit outside it.

Where does it fit?

ApplicationServiceAPIsNetwork

When would an architect use this?

  • •API design for network capabilities exposed to developers
  • •Mapping an exposure layer down to 3GPP network functions
  • •Judging maturity of a network-API product by its CAMARA release status

Who does what

GSMA Open GatewayCAMARA3GPP
What it isIndustry initiativeOpen-source API projectStandards partnership
ProducesOperator commitments, federation, commercial modelAPI specifications, code, testsNetwork specifications (incl. exposure functions)
Governed byGSMA and its operator membersLinux Foundation, open governanceSeven national and regional standards bodies
AccessMoU signature (operators); partner programme (aggregators, vendors)Public, open sourcePublic specifications

Where you'll meet it in the Academy

Official source: camaraproject.org. Everything is public: specifications, code and working-group minutes.