CableLabs is at the forefront of broadband innovation. One new area where this is particularly true is our work on developing Network APIs as a Service (NaaS). As part of this initiative, CableLabs is actively contributing to CAMARA, an open source project hosted by the Linux Foundation.
All of CableLabs’ contributions to CAMARA are part of our NaaS initiative. NaaS allows network operators to expose features previously unavailable to application developers via open source APIs. Industry alignment means that CableLabs can not only use open source APIs, but we can help drive new APIs and adoption from multiple network operators.
The ultimate goal is straightforward: make end users happier by improving application performance across all types of networks.
What is Camara, and who contributes to it?
CAMARA focuses on defining, developing and testing APIs that allow interaction with a service provider’s network. The project aligns closely with the GSMA’s Open Gateway initiative to develop, deploy and test these open source APIs.
CAMARA community contributors include network operators, mobile carriers and application developers. CAMARA aims to simplify the APIs that interact with the service provider by stripping the network complexity away. This allows developers to create applications that interact with a service provider’s network without having to understand the access network being used or the inner workings and complexities of mobile networks, PON or DOCSIS®️.
Rather than developing solutions for our members in silos, by contributing to CAMARA, CableLabs helps provide a path to adoption across a broader ecosystem. CAMARA’s open source approach enables rapid development of network-based APIs for companies in the industry.
CableLabs’ contributions to the CAMARA APIs
The CAMARA APIs align with the work CableLabs is doing to help improve networks and make APIs more accessible to a wide range of developers, both inside and outside the network operator.
Quality on Demand (QoD) APIs: CableLabs contributes to several CAMARA projects, starting with expanding the CAMARA Quality on Demand (QoD) APIs to include the QoS profile. This allows the application to set target thresholds for network performance including throughput, latency, packet loss, and jitter. You can read more about this in our QoD blog post.
Network Access Management APIs: CAMARA network access management APIs are also something CableLabs contributes to. These APIs allow the application to interact with the equipment provided by the network operator in the home. The primary scope of network access management APIs is to allow actions such as rebooting the device or managing the Wi-Fi network.
Edge Cloud: CableLabs is also contributing to CAMARA’s Edge Cloud project. This project allows customers to discover the closest edge cloud region for a given device to improve application performance.
Quality by Design: CableLabs is working closely with CAMARA’s Connectivity Insights group to develop a new API that takes Quality on Demand one step further. Quality by Design (QbD) defines network requirements and enables an application to communicate its network’s key performance indicators – throughput, latency, jitter, and packet loss – to the network operator. The network operator can then determine the cause of network performance issues and suggest corrective action.
How do CAMARA APIs become available?
CAMARA compiles all of these API projects twice a year in what it calls a meta release. The Fall 2024 intro edition – CAMARA’s first – is available now.
Although the next release is not planned until spring 2025, contributions to CAMARA are continuing. In fact, APIs are released between meta versions. CableLabs’ QbD API, which was not released in the fall, is expected to be released in the coming months. At that point, it will be tagged to a specific release to also be included in the Spring 2025 meta release.
Once released, APIs become available for anyone to download and use immediately.
Participate with us in CAMARA projects
Read more about the open source CAMARA project on their website and join the project on GitHub. If you are a CableLabs member or supplier, you can also join the Network as a Service (NaaS) working group. The more shareholders there are, the better the industry as a whole will be.
