What is RCS messaging?

Google has been planning to introduce Rich Communication Services (RCS) for a long time. RCS has been regarded by many as the future of text messaging, which will replace SMS and MMS. Since the time, Google shut down Hangouts and Allo earlier this year, Google has been focusing largely on RCS technology to 'fix' messaging on mobile devices. In April of 2018, Google was reported to transfer the team behind its Google Allo messaging service to work on a wider RCS implementation.

And in June this year, Google said it would start deploying RCS as an opt-in basis via the Messages app, and the RCS-compliant service will be hosted by Google rather than being by a user’s mobile telecom operator.

What is  RCS?

In technical terms, RCS combines different services, which are defined by the 3GPP and Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) with an enhanced phonebook. The technology uses 3GPP specified IMS core system as the base service platform that takes care of authentication, authorization, registration, charging and routing.

But, for the uninitiated, Rich Communication Services represents the next step in text messaging. It is defined as a communication protocol between telecom operators and between a mobile device, which is designed to replace the existing SMS messages with a text-message system that is richer and can transmit in-call multimedia.

How RCS can help you and your businesses?

With the rise of social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, customers now engage with a brand and its services in a way that they prefer – be it SMS or RCS messaging. RCS will power the brands to communicate with their customers instantly, as it will bring a few additional enhancements over existing standard messaging across Android mobile devices. This enhanced and improved RCS messaging will ultimately help businesses form deep relationships by providing an interactive platform to reach their customers through mobile apps and to grow their presence.

RCS vs SMS

The major difference between RCS and SMS lies in the fact the RCS offers expanded character set, larger message size, and status reporting. While SMS notifies you when an SMS is being sent, RCS notifies you when your message is being sent, delivered, read, and if the recipient is responding to your message – similar to what happens in iMessage, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, etc.

India will soon get RCS

Google has rolled out RCS messaging in the US bringing them a seamless and helpful messaging experience on Android. Whether you are connecting from mobile or desktop, RCS will offer you suggestions from the Google Assistant and will make it easy to search your conversations.

Using RCS, you can chat over Wi-Fi or mobile data, send and receive high-resolution photos and videos, and see if people have received your latest messages. Additionally, group chats will be improved with the ability to name groups, add and remove people to and from groups, and see if people haven’t seen the latest messages.

India is also among the list of countries where RCS will be deployed soon.