The future is here and the future is Rich Content Services!

After 5G (See the blog post here)  RCS will be the next big thing to happen to the telecommunications sector since the advent of SMS messaging over 25 years ago. RCS will expand on the features of SMS, such as including emojis, non-standard punctuation, pictures, gifs and other media whilst maintaining the greatest feature of SMS – the universal availability.

There are a couple of major areas where SMS is seen. Its use in mobile marketing is a multi-billion industry SMS is still instant and is used by companies across the globe to promote new products, deals, or specials. SMS is also used heavily in systems which use two-factor-authentication.

SMS is still extremely useful but it is also slightly limited when it comes to sending rich content. RCS was designed to be to be the successor to SMS and will keep all of the old services whilst also integrating all the features  offered by messaging or “Chat” apps too such as Whatsapp, WeChat or Facebook Messenger.

RCS has actually been around for quite a while but networks have been slow to adopt due to the lack of standardisation across different networks and handset manufacturers. After a big push by Android to create a standard that can be used across the board there’s a high probability that it will be rolled out soon. Apple will surely follow.

Below are the main services which will be standard with the specifications of RCS.

• Standalone Messaging (No character limit)
• 1-to-1 Chat
• Group Chat
• File Transfer
• Content Sharing
• Social Presence Information
• IP Voice call
• Best Effort Video call
• Geolocation Exchange
• Audio Messaging
• Network based blacklist

It’s something to be excited about, it will revolutionise the entire market breathing new life into SMS marketing.

Keep an eye out for: Advanced Messaging, Advanced Communications, Joyn, Message+ and SMS+ These are some of  the alternative names for RCS which are currently being marketed.