Wireless carriers Telenor and Telefónica are cooperating in an effort to make Telenor APIs available on Telefónica's BlueVia platform. BlueVia is a "shared API platform for building and marketing applications," that gives app developers the ability to create apps and get them to 311 million Telefónica subscribers worldwide. By making its APIs available through BlueVia, Telenor's 150 million subscribers are now a part of the platform, making it easier for developers to access the combined subscriber base of the two companies.

The first effort of the two companies will be to offer a direct carrier billing option so that users can charge their purchases of digital goods to their monthly phone bills. Telenor and Telefónica said the ease of direct carrier billing makes it easier for consumers to download paid mobile content and will be especially helpful to subscribers in regions where debit and credit card use is low.

"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," said Rolv-Erik Spilling, SVP and deputy head of Telenor digital services. "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."

Over time, the companies will explore other areas for cooperating on expanding BlueVia.

"From the beginning, BlueVia's aim has been to gain scale and experiment fast on API business, not sticking to Telefónica's footprint, but rather expanding our vision to a pure global ecosystem," said Jose Valles, head of BlueVia. "Telenor is leading the industry in embracing this vision. We are glad to work with them, initially in mobile payments, but also in exploring other innovative APIs aimed at different areas of the market."

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