RCS: IMS in new clothes, or a new fashion staple for forward thinkers?

Fact: Consumers want Internet-like services on all their devices, and they don’t want to create new identities for different Web pages, applications or social media channels. They want to be recognized for who they are and have a seamless, ubiquitous, interconnected experience.

RCS, or Rich Communications Suite, is supposed to deliver that, ultimately, by getting operators, developers, network equipment players and device manufacturers on the same page, working toward a rich, integrated applications experience.

Though some will criticize that RCS is nothing more than instant messaging, others contend it adds a lot more than just presence and availability to mobile addresses. But just what “it” will be depends on business models and how different value chain partners work together with the same end-goal in mind.

Perhaps the focus on LTE deployments and all-IP networks will bring new life to RCS. For example, there are ongoing RCS trials, which involve connecting applications to SIP applications servers through IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) core networks.

The address book: A battle ground between OTT players and Telcos?

For consumers, their contacts are arguably their most valuable asset. So whatever player ends up gaining their trust and making the most of those contacts will likely come out on top. But with many Web services already making good use of user contacts and presence information – usually for free – is it too late for telcos to make their mark?

The counter-argument is that telecom service providers, and mobile operators in particular, have something compelling that their OTT rivals don’t have. For one, mobile operators around the globe can boast billions of subscribers. That is a significant starting point. The promise of RCS is to interconnect those customers and a new set of network-aware applications across all sorts of devices, in an open and interoperable way.

Lars Myhrum, CEO of Colibria, has done 25 trials with mobile operators in North America, Europe and Asia. He believes mobile operators, particularly the larger ones, are now realizing they can monetize the interconnections and relationships they have with other carriers around the world to go beyond what over-the-top players are doing today.

“Today, when you look at Samsung smart phones that allow you to easily get your address book from Google and add Facebook, or you see how Apple leveraged SMS for its messaging service, you see how others are benefiting from the features provided by operators—whether messaging, text, multimedia, ad hoc groups, status, presence, and presence-enabled address books,” said Myhrum.

He believes operators can offer richer experiences by providing more access to more multiple social networks and a unified experience built from the ground up around contact groups and address books, which contain unique identifiers for people that he believes should be managed and controlled by operators, not over-the-top Web players.

“If operators can unify the experience of a presence-enabled address book and different social networks in a complementary way (rather than the current siloed fashion in which people have to do things), then they can own the identity and better offer compelling services,” said Myhrum.

Today, whether in a bank, at an airport or waiting in a taxi line, mobile users can receive content and marketing messages from any number of sources. The common thread is the use of the mobile operator network. “If you get a text from your limo service that a car is on the way, which is making use of the operator’s SMS channel. It should be the operator branding that should be associated with the customer’s experience,” added Myhrum.

Users today reveal their identity in a number of ways – sometimes via their mobile number, at other times using their Facebook ID. But it is the mobile operator that potentially holds the key to such exchanges – global interoperability and connections to all other providers.

“It is therefore the telco operators that can provide the service that reaches everyone. It’s that type of thinking that will come with RCS. CSPs can think about openness and interconnectivity, while OTT players provide more silos and think about closed interfaces. Obviously the open model will be more beneficial to the end consumers services—whether individuals, or enterprises seeking unified communications—as well as any combination thereof,” said Myhrum.

Myhrum believes the move to VoIP by fixed operators will further drive RCS—regardless of what it is labeled. “Everyone wants to offer richer communication services involving rich messaging, text and multimedia, ad hoc groups, presence, network-based storage of contacts), and eventually it will all merge.”