Introduction

Open standards like CAMARA play a key role in simplifying access to network capabilities. That’s why Vonage supports these standards, which are essential for making Network APIs interoperable between organisations. 

However, instead of exposing CAMARA APIs as standalone endpoints, we’ve taken a more integrated approach: embedding them directly into our products to give customers more flexibility and a better developer experience in real-world implementations.

By adjusting our product strategy, we’ve made it easier for developers to benefit from CAMARA capability where it’s supported, while enjoying the features that come with Vonage’s existing APIs. Here are a couple of real examples of how we’ve made this work.

Example 1: Number Verification via Silent Authentication in Verify

Instead of requiring developers to integrate directly with the CAMARA Number Verification API, we’ve embedded it into the backend of our Verify API as part of the Silent Authentication flow.

When Silent Auth is enabled, Verify will automatically attempt to authenticate the user using CAMARA, behind the scenes and only where supported. If Silent Authentication isn’t available or fails, the flow gracefully falls back to alternative channels, such as SMS, RCS, Voice, or WhatsApp.

To help developers move from a direct CAMARA implementation to this new approach, we’ve published a detailed migration guide that walks through the process step by step.

Example 2: SIM Swap Detection via Identity Insights

Likewise, instead of offering a dedicated API that simply answers whether a SIM change has occurred in the past X days, we’ve incorporated this capability into our new Identity Insights API.

With just one API call, developers can retrieve multiple identity insights about a phone number, including SIM Swap indicators, number format, carrier metadata, and other relevant details. By taking this approach, developers have just one API to integrate with instead of several, speeding up development and improving latency.

Why This Approach?

There are two main reasons behind our decision to integrate CAMARA APIs directly into Vonage products:

Hiding the Complexity of Aggregating Multiple Mobile Operators

As a CAMARA aggregator, Vonage connects with multiple mobile operators across different countries. Each operator may implement different versions of the same CAMARA API, with slight design differences, as the standard continues to evolve.

Managing this fragmentation directly can become a burden for developers, as it introduces complex conditional logic, requires additional testing, and increases maintenance costs.

By embedding CAMARA APIs into our products, we take on this complexity ourselves. Developers only interact with a single API surface, regardless of the country or operator involved. This allows faster integration and better developer experience.

Authentication Aligned with the Rest of Vonage APIs

By integrating these APIs behind Vonage’s product layer, we’ve unified the authentication flow. Now, developers can consume CAMARA features using the same authentication method they already use for other Vonage services. No additional complexity, no new auth models to learn.

Conclusion

CAMARA is changing how mobile networks expose capabilities. Our commitment to CAMARA remains strong as we continue to support and contribute to the evolution of the standard. 

By integrating its APIs into Vonage’s products, we make it easier for developers to access advanced network capabilities through a consistent, production-ready interface.

Ready to explore network-powered features? Start with Silent Authentication or check out Identity Insights API to see how these integrated CAMARA APIs work in real-world scenarios.