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RCS as a Successor to SMS

SMSs have changed human communication in a sustained manner. Meanwhile, they have become obsolete, however, being replaced by various messaging services such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat or iMessage. Profiting still too little from this trend, mobile phone operators are working together with Google to develop a successor called Rich Communication Services (RCS).

SMSs Are Obsolete

Short Message Service (SMS) became very popular in the 1990s. It was implemented as part of the GSM standard by the GSMA (Groupe Special Mobile Association), a global association of mobile phone operators. SMSs have revolutionised communications, but, compared with other messaging services, they are no longer up to date. In modern communications, it is necessary to be able to send high-resolution pictures or other large files, communicate in groups or make video calls. All that could not be done with SMSs, whereupon users switched to the competition: messaging services provided over data traffic such as Whatsapp or iMessage. As SMS’s successor and competitor, the GSMA has now developed RCS: a new communications standard which permits technically interesting capabilities such as ticket buying or bot integration. RCS-based messaging services are still in the fledgling stage. An example is Google’s upcoming communications platform called simply and prosaically ‘Chat’.

Mobile Phone Operators Cooperate with Google

With Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger, Facebook is a market leader, Apple has its own service called iMessage, which is preinstalled on Apple devices by default. The technological giant Google, however, has no established messenger, so it hopes that RCS technology will enable it to grab a slice of the messaging market. It is true that the other services are well-established, but due to its Android operating system Google’s edge is that its messaging service could come preinstalled by default. It remains to be seen whether RCS will gain acceptance as a new messaging standard or not; mobile phone operators in individual countries will have to join in to promote it.

 

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