Telecom giants in Canada may seem at war with one another when it comes to advertising and promotion, but signals of collaboration continue to emerge, even as the competitor complaints keep getting louder.

Smaller companies looking to compete with wireless spectrum have been particularly displeased by Bell and Telus teaming to create a mobile network to take on Rogers. The purchase of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment by Rogers and Bell, meanwhile, has led to competitors including Telus voicing opposition to the potential tying up of sports broadcast rights.

Flying beneath the mainstream media radar, though, is their harmonic "co-opetition" in a service designed to make it easier for application developers to bring their ideas to market: OneAPI, the service launched in Canada this month after a two-year trial, promises an instant gateway to all of Bell, Rogers and Telus. What used to involve an 18-24-month process of sorting out carrier contracts related to application programming interface can now be delivered within a minute.