5G message white paper is about to be released, and traditional SMS will usher in a major change

With the advent of the 5G era, traditional SMS services will not disappear, but will usher in new vitality and vigor. Recently, China Unicom announced that it will jointly release a 5G message white paper with China Telecom and China Mobile at 10 a.m. on April 8, giving traditional SMS a gorgeous transformation.

It is reported that the change in SMS business is to meet the requirements of the new 5G era. The three major communication operators will not only comprehensively upgrade basic SMS, but the upgraded 5G messages will also be an innovation in experience and service.

5G messaging is here to bring new life to traditional text messages

5G messages, or RCS messages, allow us to implement various rich applications of APP on the SMS interface. It can be divided into "RCS enhanced SMS" for end users and "RCS business rich media messages" for businesses. It allows individual users to connect with various service platforms and businesses, and allows RCS enhanced messages to support rich media message push, which is comparable to WeChat in terms of function. In the future, 5G messages will provide a better communication service platform for enterprises, businesses and users.

Through the enhanced SMS function of RCS, you can send text, pictures, voice, video, location information and other content directly on the SMS interface, and you can also start a group chat. It can be understood as "iMessage for Android phones."

Through the various functional interfaces and AI chatbots provided by RCS Business Messaging, things that were originally done with apps can be achieved. At this time, RCS is like a butler, providing us with travel, entertainment, shopping and other services through the SMS interface.

Here we have selected several application scenarios to show you.

The 10086 service account can directly send SMS keywords to obtain information such as phone charges, balance, and bills. In addition, the official reply push messages are in rich text format, and the bill and balance information can be illustrated with pictures and text.

Booking offline catering, entertainment and other services is often done through mobile apps. Through the 5G messaging platform, this operation can be quickly completed in the SMS interface.

Enter the corresponding service account on the SMS interface and click on the keyword to get the latest logistics information.

Buying train tickets has become more convenient and intelligent. In the SMS interface, you can complete the conversation with the service platform just like chatting. Just enter the city name, date, name and other information to complete the ticket booking quickly and efficiently.

5G will also give rise to new usage scenarios. In the 5G world where everything is connected, RCS enhanced information can be directly connected to smart homes, and the advantages of low latency and large capacity can be fully utilized. All smart home control operations can be met using SMS applications, eliminating the need to install a bunch of bloated apps.

Some experts predict that once RCS is fully promoted, it will replace most apps in the future! It can be foreseen that 5G messages will seize the high ground of various mobile applications with the two powerful tools of "RCS enhanced text messages" and "RCS commercial rich media messages"!

The three major operators jointly deploy 5G messages and press the fast-forward button

According to GSMA data, the current global market value of industry SMS is US$62 billion, and it is expected that by 2021, the global market value of industry SMS based on RCS will reach US$74 billion.

As revenue potential increases, operators' support for RCS is growing. Currently, global RCS services are on a fast track of development. According to official GSMA statistics, 74 operators around the world have officially launched commercial RCS in 2018, and the number is expected to reach 200 in 2020. The number of global RCS users (monthly active users) is expected to exceed 1 billion for the first time in the second and third quarters of 2019.

China is also following closely behind RCS, and the three major operators are actively promoting it. Among them, the RCS enhanced SMS service launched by China Mobile has achieved rapid growth. GSMA sources revealed that the number of China Mobile's enhanced messaging users has ranked first in the global 5G messaging (RCS) market share.

With the large-scale commercial use of 5G, the increasing penetration of smart terminals, and the development of digital and payment technologies, 5G messaging will usher in huge market opportunities. By then, the scene power of trillions of text messages will be unstoppable, and 5G messaging will become the main entrance to future smart terminal scene services.

Of course, RCS also has problems. The first is that its commercialization progress has been relatively slow, which involves the interconnection between operators. The joint release of the 5G message white paper by the three major operators is conducive to breaking through the RCS service barriers and jointly conducting extensive industry cooperation and scenario-based experiments with upper-level application service providers, so that operators can deploy consistent RCS services, feature sets and configurations, thereby providing users with standardized RCS information services.

Accelerating the release of ecological value

The development of short messages relies on business management, while the core of RCS development is ecology. In addition to the network level, mobile terminals, chips, and operating systems must support it.

At the terminal level, mobile phone manufacturers including Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Meizu have gradually supported RCS-related functions in their mobile phones. At the chip level, Qualcomm and MediaTek MTK will also support RCS converged communication capabilities on their own processor products. At the system level, last June, Google enabled the RCS function in the Android messaging app in the UK and France. Since the Android system has occupied more than 75% of smartphone users in the world, if Google opens the RCS service to the entire Android ecosystem, it means that more than 75% of smartphones and hundreds of millions of users in the world will be able to experience the ability of converged communication in the future.

It can be seen that under the leadership of operators, the embryonic form of the domestic 5G message ecosystem has emerged, and users, enterprises, and message platforms are building a new message ecosystem. The release of the 5G message white paper on April 8 may become a new node that affects the development of the industry and create a new "trend" for the 5G industry.