The communications industry has a mixed track record--at best--for creating new marketplace standards for multimedia, devices, apps, platforms and marketplaces.
Consider multimedia messaging system, the upgrade to text messaging incorporating image and video support. Turns out, people prefer to use third party messaging apps.
So MMS will no longer be supported in Singapore, for example. Singtel and M1 are advising customers to switch from MMS to apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram and WeChat.
And then there is Rich Communication Services, which was intended to be the service provider alternative to chat and messaging. That never took, either. In fact, it took Google, which has been pushing RCS, to give the standard traction.
In the U.S. market, AT&T and T-Mobile have opted to use the Google Messages platform, based on RCS. So instead of a “telco alternative” to app messaging services, RCS--as developed by Google Messages--becomes the AT&T and T-Mobile default for advanced messaging, not a carrier version.
Rich Communications Services was intended to be the multimedia successor to SMS (short message service). The GSMA has promoted the use of RCS since 2008, primarily as a way of making carrier text messaging behave as do chat apps.
But application-based messaging such as iMessage, WeChat, Slack, Skype, Viber, Android Messages, also are built on SMS.
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