Google has big plans for RCS Messaging as it is trying to spread the system throughout the world.
Google has big plans for RCS Messaging. As it is trying to spread the system throughout the world, it recently gained a new partner. The Telenor Group is joining its mission.
Rich Communication Services or RCS is a communication protocol between mobile phones and the carriers. Its aim? To replace the standard SMS messages. A new text-message system could come in their place, a richer variant. One capable of transmitting in-call multimedia. And of providing phonebook polling. This latter enables service discovery.
RCS messaging started being used in 2012. And is already being offered by a number of service carriers. Google has been trying to increase the RCS network. And just recently, it managed to add a new carrier to its list.
The Telenor Group will now start providing RCS messaging. It will do so with help from Google, but only in a number of countries. This will mostly target European states.
For example, the Nordic countries, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro. But it will also be released in India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Telenor will be helping roll out the feature for Android users. The two will do so as RCS messaging is considered a marked improvement. Especially when compared to MMS and also SMS messages.
The RCS messaging comes with the same ubiquity potential as the common SMS. But it also offers features currently available only on specialized messaging apps. For example, it sports some of the Facebook Messenger and Hangouts properties. As such, it is capable of ensuring group chats and also high-resolution images transmissions.
RCS messaging is already compatible with the Universal Profile, a globally accepted GSMA variant. This means that both supporting devices and carriers will benefit from a guide. This should help them clarify some aspects. For example, how to support RCS customers. And also how to maintain a constant service.
Google’s RCS messaging option is easy to come by. Interested users will only have to download an app from the Play Store. More exactly, the Google Messenger one. There are several other available RCS messaging apps. In some cases, even the default messaging app could support it.
But the Google Messenger currently offers the highest accessibility. It can be downloaded on most phones. And it offers both RCS, SMS, and MMS messaging and support, all in one place.
Following the Telenor partnership, some of their phones will come with the Google Messenger pre-installed. The company subscribers from the aforementioned countries should soon be able to access the service. This will be backed and supported by a Google platform, Jibe.
The RCS messaging system offers more advanced features as it relies more heavily on data networks. Instead of using the traditional 2G network, it will mostly use the data ones.
RCS offers a quite universal compatibility and ease of access. It also supports a wide, varied range of data features, which are not usual on standard messaging. Nonetheless, it does have some minuses.
One would be the fact desktop clients that support RCS messaging won’t be able to sync user messages. And they will also be unable to receive or send messages in sync with the phone.
Image Source: Wikimedia
Michael Turner
