{"id":3550,"date":"2017-02-16T14:49:04","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T14:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/google-inks-third-carrier-telenor-to-its-android-rcs-messaging-play.html"},"modified":"2017-02-16T14:49:04","modified_gmt":"2017-02-16T14:49:04","slug":"google-inks-third-carrier-telenor-to-its-android-rcs-messaging-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/google-inks-third-carrier-telenor-to-its-android-rcs-messaging-play.html","title":{"rendered":"Google inks third carrier, Telenor, to its Android RCS messaging play"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

Another mobile carrier, Telenor, has partnered with Google to roll out a next-gen SMS tech \u2014 this time targeting Android users in Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n

The aim with the Rich Communications Services (aka RCS) technology in general is to\u00a0bring an enhanced\u00a0messaging experience for SMS users \u2014 enabling\u00a0iMessage-style features such as group chats, read receipts and typing indicators, and high-res photo sharing.<\/p>\n

The flavor of the tech Google is involved with\u00a0integrates its own Messenger app into the native SMS app to bring upgraded native messaging features to\u00a0newer Android\u00a0handsets.<\/p>\n

\"telenorgiffinal\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Late last year this\u00a0flavor of RCS tech\u00a0was rolled out to Android hardware\u00a0using the\u00a0Sprint<\/a> and Rogers<\/a>\u2018 networks, in the US and Canada \u2014 with Sprint being Google\u2019s\u00a0first carrier partner in the initiative.<\/p>\n

Telenor\u2019s coverage footprint includes\u00a0countries such as India and Thailand, as well as multiple European nations, and it has some\u00a0214 million mobile subscribers in all \u2014 so it\u2019s the biggest bump yet in\u00a0potential reach for Google\u2019s\u00a0initiative.<\/p>\n

That said, the company\u00a0still has a very long way to go if it\u2019s hoping to build comprehensive backing for its\u00a0effort to upgrade Android users\u2019 experience of SMS across the board.<\/p>\n

Almost a year ago, Mountain View\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0a joint effort with mobile carriers to push the next-gen SMS\u00a0standard, with a plan to include an RCS-messaging client in Android.<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s also been up to individual carriers to get on board and enable the tech for their networks,\u00a0which underlines the scale of the fragmentation challenge for Google\/Alphabet here, given how carriers do tend to prioritize\u00a0their own competing commercial interests, rather than falling in step with Google\u2019s. (Whereas Apple\u2019s closed iOS ecosystem more easily\u00a0sidesteps such\u00a0issues.)<\/p>\n

In fact carriers actually started\u00a0working on RCS a decade ago, with the idea of improving SMS across the board.\u00a0Yet according to data from mobile industry association the GSMA<\/a>, there are only around 50 carriers globally with RCS launched at this point, spanning 37 countries and supporting 156 devices. (And, to be clear, the lion\u2019s share of those rollouts are also older iterations on the RCS standard\u00a0\u2014 i.e., not the newer, Google-backed play with the Android RCS-messaging client on board.)<\/p>\n

In 2015 Google clearly got tired of waiting around on the sidelines for carriers to get a\u00a0collective messaging act together \u2014 acquiring a specialist in the standard, Jibe Mobile<\/a>, to, in its words, \u201chelp bring RCS to a global audience\u201d. Or rather to try to persuade carriers of the benefits of aligning with a cross-network\u00a0Android-to-Android next-gen SMS messaging strategy.<\/p>\n

Progress so far on that goal? The\u00a0three carriers listed in this article. Though the company says it will have more RCS launches in the \u201ccoming months\u201d, and related\u00a0news to announce at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow taking place later this month \u2014 so more operators are presumably going to\u00a0be added to that tally soon.<\/p>\n

Either way, Google\u00a0remains a very, very<\/em> long way away from its\u00a0sought for destination of having a comprehensive competitor to iMessage baked into Android users\u2019 SMS experience out of the box. The diversity of the Android ecosystem makes any\u00a0push for standardizing enhanced\u00a0native\u00a0messaging features a Sisyphean struggle.<\/p>\n

And even where carriers agree to roll out its flavor of\u00a0RCS, as Telenor now has, the initiative\u00a0relies on existing subscribers to their networks having the Google\u00a0Messenger app already on their phone in order to get the update automatically (via an update to that app). Or else installing\u00a0the Messenger app in future.<\/p>\n

Google said\u00a0today<\/a> that as part of its\u00a0partnership with Telenor \u201cmany\u201d new Android devices will come with Messenger for Android preloaded as the default SMS and RCS messaging app. But\u00a0many =\/= all. So its RCS play is also being hamstrung by a limited pool of compatible devices.<\/p>\n

Safe to say, a lot of players\u00a0will need to be in it for the long haul if\u00a0Android is to\u00a0summit\u00a0this \u2018better native messaging\u2019 mountain.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, over-the-top mobile messaging app giants like Facebook-owned WhatsApp \u2014 which has more than one billion monthly active users<\/a> for its richly featured messaging platform \u2014 continue to cannibalize SMS and pull users\u00a0away from native messaging clients. Meaning\u00a0all this effort might end up being rather\u00a0\u2018too little, too late\u2019 in any case.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/KQ405j3hLIc\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another mobile carrier, Telenor, has partnered with Google to roll out a next-gen SMS tech \u2014 this time targeting Android users in Europe and Asia. The aim with the Rich <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-3550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t