The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) today announced the beta launch of its in-app billing network API, supported by nine operators, which it said will enable customers to pay for digital goods via their operator bill.

WAC’s in-app billing will provide developers with an easy way to monetise apps across a range of platforms and technologies, using a cross-operator, reliable billing service, the group said. It also highlighted the availability of “near real-time reporting,” so a WAC developer can implement a pricing change and get almost instant feedback on the impact.

John Donovan, senior EVP of technology and network operations at AT&T, and chairman of the WAC network API project, said: “we adamantly believe that our industry needs a cross-operator solution for authentication, billing and other APIs. This is an imperative to our industry which requires a focus on speed and execution to enable the benefits of the mobile Internet for more customers.”

The work is being supported by AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, KT, LG U+, Telefonica, Telenor, Telekom Austria Group, SK Telecom, and Smart Communications.

WAC also announced “a series of HTML5-focused hackathons,” hosted by global operators in designed for app developers to share knowledge about creating HTML5 mobile apps an using the WAC Billing API.

The first event will take place in the US in May, backed by AT&T and Facebook – the social networking company announced its participation in a number of mobile HTML5 efforts yesterday. This will be “quickly followed” by events in Europe and Asia, including in France, Germany and South Korea.