Much progress has been made in RCS over the last 12 months: more launches, joint ventures in USA and Japan, Google Guest rollout, and many innovative campaigns. However, RCS business messaging still needs more work to be done on industry alignment. Today, MEF’s Future of Messaging Programme participants have published their latest recommendations in V2.0 of the RCS Business Messaging Best Practices.
The mobile industry continues to advance the roll out of rich communication services (RCS) with over 100 networks now live. RCS as a business application is particularly interesting as it is the sole rich messaging technology which allows both application to person (A2P) outbound messaging from businesses to end users as well as person to application (P2A) inbound messages from end users to enterprises, brands and other organisations.
However, implementation is complex due to the fragmentation of its ecosystem and a lack of alignment on some fundamental options could limit its scalability and effectiveness.
As an open-standards-based messaging platform, RCS has many stakeholders building to a single standard and market adoption requires agreement on the implementation of fundamental technology and business practices to deliver full interoperability.
Participants of MEF’s Future of Messaging Programme discuss and align to reduce friction in the market by developing best practices. V1.0 of the guidelines for the effective launch of A2P and P2A communication services via RCS were launched at ITW, Atlanta last year. They have now been fully updated to refine the technical options and streamline required processes to facilitate the successful growth of RCS business messaging.
New topics covered in V2.0 include:
- Interoperability
- Discovery
- Privacy
- Security
We believe that providing guidance and simplification will support a faster and more efficient rollout of RCS A2P and P2A business messaging services”
The latest guidelines also include a full review and update on all 13 sections including latest recommendations on commercialisation, an analysis of stakeholder requirements & constraints for interconnect scenarios as well as a full review of the fraud management including the recommendation to make verification mandatory and clarification on the role of Verification Authorities.
Dario Betti, MEF’s CEO said: ‘the need for a cross-stakeholder think tank to help the ecosystem get market ready for RCS has not diminished. The latest version of MEF’s guidelines highlight areas to be addressed by the entire ecosystem and offer clear and transparent guidance. In addition to the best practice recommendations MEF is working with its members topic by topic including Payments, Discovery and Product Roadmap to help knowledge sharing and to seek industry alignment through digital briefings as well as roundtables at a country level.’
The working group was led by industry expert David O’Byrne and contributors to V2.0 of the guidelines include Anam, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, GSMA, IMImobile, Infobip, MMDSmart℠, Mobilesquared, Openmarket, Orange, RDcom, Sinch, Telefonica, Telenor and WMC Global.
Join the authors for an exclusive briefing on the updated Best Practices – May 20th 4PM GMT
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