2020, a new starting point for 5G messaging

Currently, nearly 100 operators around the world are vigorously developing converged communication services (RCS), and Chinese operators are an important driving force among them and have made great contributions to the development of related technologies and ecological construction. As early as 2014, China Mobile launched a white paper on the next-generation converged communication industry, and released RCS commercial rich media MaaP (RCS A2P standard launched by GSMA) during the Shanghai Mobile Conference last year. On April 8 this year, the three major domestic operators jointly launched the "5G Message White Paper", which means that 5G messages (RCS) have officially entered the stage.

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"The emergence of 5G messages means that after 12 years of evolution, RCS has officially become the starting point of the next generation of messages in 2020," said Du Chengxin, general manager of the 5G Message Operations Department of China Telecom Value-Added Center.

Generate unlimited business opportunities

Wu Huazhi, deputy general manager of the Converged Communications Division of China Mobile Internet Co., Ltd., said in an interview that 5G messaging will become a new outlet. 5G messaging is one of the implementation measures of China's "5G+" strategy, a historic change in the SMS business, and a channel for operators' AICDE capabilities to fully empower all walks of life. "As an infrastructure, 5G messaging is conducive to eliminating the information gap and promoting the informatization of thousands of industries. It will create a trillion-level market value in the future." Wu Huazhi said.

At present, it seems that the booming 5G messaging will benefit the country, operators, industry users and individual consumers. Fu Guoqiang, an expert at the Institute of Technology and Standards of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, believes that 5G messaging can first drive the development of 5G applications, meet the country's requirements to accelerate the development of 5G, and promote the deep integration of 5G rich media messaging and network media. On the other hand, against the backdrop of the decline of personal messaging and the growth of industry messaging, the development of 5G messaging can help operators effectively respond to market changes. Finally, now that each online application provides services based on its own app, the promotion cost of application developers is very high, and consumers have to install a large number of apps. 5G messaging can greatly simplify the rich media messaging service system.

"5G messaging also provides a platform for latecomers in the market to quickly develop their business. Terminal manufacturers and non-Internet companies can use it to build their own messaging services and win more opportunities for value-added services," said Fu Guoqiang.

Broad prospects for industry application

At present, 5G messages have mature international standards and native terminal message portals, which can easily realize multimedia and lightweight messages. At the same time, they also inherit the number system, real-name system, security, interconnection and telecom-level service quality of telecommunications services. Fu Guoqiang said that at present, a consensus has been reached on the international standards for 5G messages. Next, operators need to unify steps and collaborate on construction to ensure that users have a satisfactory experience.

From the perspective of industry applications, industries such as finance, insurance, securities, and e-commerce are very interested in 5G messaging. These industries all have problems such as high app installation costs and low usage frequency. 5G messaging will greatly improve the communication efficiency and experience between enterprises and users in these industries. Small and medium-sized application developers who need to rely on external platforms are also very welcoming of 5G messaging, but they decide on subsequent actions based on the deployment progress of operators, and also need an equal, open, and unified testing environment.

Two issues: compliance and industry ecology

"So now it seems that the development of 5G messaging still needs to solve problems in two aspects: compliance and industrial ecology," said Fu Guoqiang.

Addressing compliance issues:

First of all, we need to consider the management of spam messages. However, 5G messages provide a set of multimedia message service capabilities, and traditional spam filtering methods may become ineffective.

Secondly, the current domestic 5G message system architecture provides good openness, but network security issues also need to be given high attention.

Third, domestic 5G messages support WLAN access, which may lead to a certain decline in service quality.

Industrial issues are relatively more complicated:

On the one hand, 5G messaging services require the support of terminal companies, so operators need to consider the profit distribution model between them and terminal companies.

On the other hand, the current deployment of 5G messages is mainly concentrated on operators and third-party platforms, lacking interaction with other links in the 5G message value chain, making it difficult to stimulate market vitality. In addition, how to provide a good growth environment for small and medium-sized developers, how to collaborate between operators, and how to deal with the relationship between 5G messages and existing IP messages and smart messages in the market all require further consideration.