By Amir Majlesi, Technical Sales Manager

Top 5 operators Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Vodafone announced their decision at MWC11 in Barcelona to commercially launch Rich Communication Suite (RCS) across several European markets from late 2011. Other MNOs are expected to join this initiative. The launch will be based on a new adapted version of RCS Release 2.0, which is called RCS-e, and will be based on the use across networks of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) technology, an architectural framework for delivering IP multimedia services. The idea is that mobile customers can use instant messaging (IM), live video sharing and file transfer simultaneously during calls across any device on any network operator in a simple and more intuitive way. This renewed focus is based on results from RCS trials to date and a better understanding of where operators can further enhance their offering to deliver more value to customers and complement established 3rd party services.

This is a pragmatic approach by MNOs to reduce time-to-market and stimulate roll-out of rich communication services in order to combat competitive pressures from over-the-top players. So far deployment of RCS faced two hurdles: unavailability of RCS-ready handsets and complexity of RCS interoperability between MNOs. The RCS-e initiative addresses both obstacles. RCS-e specification reduces terminal conformance requirements to core functionalities in order to ensure availability on low end devices and, therefore, boosts the market penetration curve. Strong endorsement of G5 MNOs pushes now the handset vendors to expedite introduction of RCS-ready phones or to open up their platforms to allow seamless integration of 3^rd party RCS clients into the phone’s native address book. Even Apple cannot continue to be silent about RCS anymore. On the other hand, RCS-e specification focuses on easy interoperability by making “social profile information via presence“ an optional feature. The fundamental mechanism that enables RCS-e is service or capability discovery using SIP OPTIONS. This discovery mechanism is important in that it allows users to determine what services are available before calling and allows operators to roll-out new agreed services to their own schedule. RCS-e provides an adaptive framework for deployment of additional services such as presence, social networking and location base services (LBS).

Moreover, this initiative fosters development of RCS based apps and a growing RCS ecosystem. We expect to see more innovative apps using enriched services that RCS makes possible. Think about for example how social networks, premium content providers, advertising firms, gaming or e-commerce businesses can benefit from rich services such as IM, video sharing and file transfer interoperable between all devices and networks.

Tekelec welcomes RCS-e and looks forward to working with operators on this initiative.