Rich Communication: Sweet or Sour?
Posted on Wed, Nov 02, 2011 @ 03:04 PM
by Sattwik Gavli, Associate Product Manager at Sonus Networks
The telecommunications industry seems to have a love/hate relationship with Rich Communication Suite (RCS). Like another well known set of letters, IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), there are supporters who believe it’s part of the future of communications, and detractors who think it’s a distraction from the real solution. [You can read more on this in Mohan Palat’s blog, “IMS – The Struggle to Stay Relevant in an OTT World.”] For my part, I’ll try to keep this an objective discussion of the pros and cons of RCS.
First, a little history. RCS began in October 2008 when the GSMA, an association that represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry, announced the RCS program as a means to facilitate “the rapid adoption of applications and services providing an interoperable, convergent, rich communication experience both in mobile and fixed environments.” Today, the RCS-e (RCS enhanced) standards seek to do this through three significant enhancements:
- Enhanced Address Book, which provides service capabilities seamlessly out of the box
- Enhanced Messaging, which enables a large variety of messaging options including chat and messaging history
- Enriched Call, which enables multimedia content-image and video sharing during a voice call
These enhancements are loosely defined by design because the GSMA did not want to limit the scope of RCS by defining everything at a micro level. The expectation is that the communications industry as a whole will explore the infinite possibilities of this rich service.
Yet, many of these enhanced features are already available in over-the-top (OTT) applications at no cost. An RCS advocate would ask whether these OTT apps depend on particular devices, platforms and software versions? The RCS vs. OTT discussion is an interesting one, however, so I created the following table to sum up the strengths/weaknesses of each:
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RCS
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OTT
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Works on both smartphones and cheaper “dumb” phones
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Works only on specific smartphones
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Independent of platform and software
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Dependent on specific platform and software
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Not yet globally proven
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Globally proven
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Provided by service providers with carrier- grade quality
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Developed mostly by small start-ups
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Enabled out of the box
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Must be downloaded and installed
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Services are backed by a carrier’s customer support
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Not always supported by a tier 1 carrier
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Robust scalability
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Scalability is inconsistent among apps
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Backed by GSMA, 3GPP and other large industry players
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Backed by popularity and word of mouth
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Charged to customers directly or indirectly
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Current pricing model is typically free or with a minimal one-time fee
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Slow to come out with new features
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Features are quickly developed in response to market needs
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As you can see, there are arguments for both. Now let’s look at some of the research data on RCS. A report issued early this year by Infonetics Research estimates that there will be 6.8 million RCS users by the end of 2012 (see chart).
What’s interesting to note is that only Asia Pacific and Europe show confidence in RCS. RCS subscribers in North America are not expected to reach 5 million even by 2014, whereas Europe and APAC are expected to have 50-60 million subscribers by then.
Although client applications for RCS have had a promising start with Megafon and China Mobile, it’s still not a big market, with only $10.7M revenue expected in CY15.
RCS, of course, depends heavily on IMS because it re-uses the capabilities of the 3GPP-specified IMS core system as its underlying service platform. IMS addresses issues such as authentication, authorization, registration, charging and routing. With its fortunes tied to IMS, however, RCS may be in for a bumpy ride. According to a recent Infonetics study (see chart below), IMS will still not reach 100 million subscribers in North America by 2015, with EMEA and especially APAC representing the bulk of IMS subscribers. Despite that, at least half of the service providers surveyed by Infonetics planned to launch RCS and video services over the next two years.By the end of 2011, other service providers plan to launch RCS commercially, including Orange, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Vodafone. Some service providers plan to charge their customers an extra fee for RCS apps while others will charge subscribers indirectly.
An important consideration, interoperability, applies to any feature application whether RCS or OTT, with neither having an immediate advantage. And to date, RCS apps have been developed primarily for the mobile market. If service providers can develop some interesting RCS apps in the wireline market, it may gain more traction than OTT services in that market. While it’s still too early to pick a winner, we can expect the RCS vs. OTT discussion to stay heated over the next few years, if only to give IMS a break from the hotseat.
So do you think the Rich Communications Suite is the candy that will attract subscribers in the future, or is it just empty calories? Let our readers know by posting a comment below.