As part of the first step in their network API collaboration, Nokia and Orange recently co-hosted a “Network as Code Hackathon” at France’s tech start-up conference, Viva Tech Orange and Nokia today announced that they are expanding their partnership to advance 5G network programmability and monetization.

The Nordic vendor said that its Network as Code platform with developer portal, will enable developers to test and take advantage of Orange’s 5G network capabilities to create applications for customers in France and other parts of Europe.

Orange is already providing commercial production-grade network API capabilities to developers using the Orange Developer Portal, the vendor said.

Nokia said that this extended partnership will enable Orange to unlock 5G network capabilities such as dynamic bandwidth allocation, real-time location insights, predictive maintenance as well as event-driven triggers for security and safety responses.

Into achieve this, Nokia’s Network as Code platform with developer portal will provide application developers with access to Software Development Kits (SDK); Network API documentation, a ‘sandbox’ to create software code for use case simulation and testing and code ‘snippets’ that can be included in new applications in addition to Orange Developer Portal.

As part of the first step in their network API collaboration, the pair recently co-hosted a “Network as Code Hackathon” at France’s tech start-up conference, Viva Tech. This hackathon provided a forum for developers to build new use cases and applications using Nokia’s Network as Code platform with developer portal.

Both companies also said they will further engage with the developer community by enabling pre-commercial use case support while leveraging network API expertise and network capabilities provided by both partners. This pilot program will become available progressively in European countries at first by leveraging Orange 5G Labs network.

The platform uses technical standards produced through industry initiatives such as the GSMA Open Gateway initiative and the Linux Foundation CAMARA. Nokia and Orange contribute to both initiatives.

Nokia has signed collaboration agreements with 12 network operators and ecosystem partners around the world to use its Network as Code platform with developer portal.

Laurent Leboucher, group CTO at Orange, said: “We are very pleased to open another area of collaboration with Nokia that enables compelling business use cases to consume our network assets in ways that were not really feasible years ago. Today, the level of collaboration among operators, system integrators, developers, and partners, is a step change, and this is positioning us to better tap the cloud-native capabilities builtOrange’s 5G network.”

“This is an important step in our relationship with Orange and further validation of the steps we are taking in the API journey to help customers achieve network programmability and monetization,” said Raghav Sahgal, president of cloud and network services at Nokia.