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Google Is Taking Charge of the RCS Rollout

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Re: Google Is Taking Charge of the RCS Rollout

#31

Post by imchillyb »

> I also asked about metadata, which is often a loophole that gets ignored in privacy discussions. Those should be temporary, too: “We temporarily log metadata about the device such as IMSI, phone number, RCS client vendor and version, and timestamps for a limited period of time to provide the service.”

___

NOT, they /will be/ temporary. They /should be/ temporary.

That's a garbage answer. Also, not defining temporary is a loophole. Temporary could mean from 1 second to infinity, depending on how Google wants to sling it.

Re: Google Is Taking Charge of the RCS Rollout

#33

Post by joefkelley »

Someone1234 wrote: post #23

A lot of people seem excited by RCS. This escapes me, most messaging platforms have now moved into the "integrations" space. Meaning they're less defined by delivering a message, and more defined by the "value add" services they offer (like Payments, Notifications from third party services, customer support for third party services, etc). RCS is more powerful than MMS, but less powerful than the internet-based messag…

I'll try to explain why I'm excited: I think you hit it with the "anyone in the world" desire. If I truly want to communicate with anyone I know, I have three options: call, text, or email. No other messaging platform has anywhere near 100% coverage for the people I talk to. RCS won't initially have that coverage, but I do see a path to reaching that coverage since it doesn't require every single user installing and configuring an app. I'm already pretty happy with SMS, I just want some more features.

Re: Google Is Taking Charge of the RCS Rollout

#34

Post by x2f10 »

stefan_ wrote: post #32

Carriers charging for messaging? I feel like I'm in a time machine. Guys, the internet was invented! Is there no one in charge of strategy at Google? This is an embarrassment.

>Is there no one in charge of strategy at Google? This is an embarrassment.

No. If there were, we'd have Hangouts with SMS fallback. Simple as that.

Re: Google Is Taking Charge of the RCS Rollout

#35

Post by bubblethink »

dmitrygr wrote: post #2

RCS solves NONE of the problems that need solving, and only gives carriers another thing to charge for. Specifically: * the spec is very very complex, and most parts are optional, so no two phones/carriers/manufacturers/OS versions will ever agree on anything but the basic minimal set of features. * there is no specification for end-to-end encryption, and even if there were, it would be optional (as noted above) * RC…

The main problem is that everyone wants to profit from messaging in some way (carriers, google etc.) whereas there is only nominal cost to run messaging (not including development hours). Whatsapp was able to do it with $1/year. So there is no way to break this conundrum in the standard capitalistic model. If they were looking for technical solutions, they could have implemented something like signal as an AOSP app and be done with it. But there's no money in that.

Re: Google Is Taking Charge of the RCS Rollout

#36

Post by x2f10 »

v7p1Qbt1im wrote: post #22
Nextgrid wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure. There’s strong competition in the market in the form of iMessage (and others - see WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc) so I doubt there would be grounds for an anti-trust lawsuit.

There is yes. But Messages would presumably be preinstalled. In that case the EU would have a problem with it most likely. If it weren‘t preinstalled. We‘ll then it‘s pretty much Signal for example and that doesn‘t solve the problem. iMessage works because it‘s preinstalled and default. It‘s a miracle and kind of ironic that SMS being non-free drove the whole world (except the US where it was) away from it.

>iMessage works because it‘s preinstalled and default.

Is this country dependent? It is absolutely on-by-default in the United States.

Re: Google Is Taking Charge of the RCS Rollout

#37

Post by pfundstein »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #11
kilroy123 wrote: post #4

The whole world has already moved beyond texting. It's called WhatsApp. I'm from the US but I've lived abroad the last four years. I'm still surprised so many people "back home" continue to use SMS texting. Everyone I know around the world uses WhatsApp. Literally, in every single continent I know and chat with people on WhatsApp. Only Americans still use SMS from what I've seen. I just don't get it.

iOS holds something like 50% of US marketshare and iMessage takes a lot of the wind out of third-party messaging apps.

According to StatCounter, the iOS market share in the US is 57% [0]. But worldwide it is only 22% with Android at 75% [1].

[0] http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-stat...

[1] http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide

Re: Google Is Taking Charge of the RCS Rollout

#38

Post by lagg »

dmitrygr wrote: post #2

RCS solves NONE of the problems that need solving, and only gives carriers another thing to charge for. Specifically: * the spec is very very complex, and most parts are optional, so no two phones/carriers/manufacturers/OS versions will ever agree on anything but the basic minimal set of features. * there is no specification for end-to-end encryption, and even if there were, it would be optional (as noted above) * RC…

Not to be conspiratorial but I find all of this to be pretty intentional. It's currently very hard for me to stay on T-Mobile's legacy (i.e. true) PAYG plan which only supports regular texts. I often have to ask people I'm doing business with to send things as a regular text because emojis and pics don't download.

Looking at the overview on wikipedia and gsma, this thing is feature creeped to the absolute rim before overflowing. Including parts of the specification for APIs and app integration if I'm reading it correctly.

Frankly, if a corporation wanted to lay the groundwork for itself to be the private contractor for when the government wants to make use of the data that can be hoovered from these open channels. It would look a hell of a lot like Google. All this feature creep in abundance is a great way to lock people into centralized monolithic apps or force them into new revenue streams (again, they're already trying it with my PAYG plan for MMS).

I could take it to its greatest logical conclusion especially considering the API, app integration & visible protocol fingerprint and just say this is a great way to introduce WeChat by Google.

I hope this doesn't sound irrational. But I for one find it irrational that I'm even in this position with regular texting versus MMS. It's like phone carriers are the only ones allowed to have shitty interoperability of this kind. Getting really tired of it. Also I hope you're right that their fuckups are resulting in lower adoption, because 68 (including T-Mobile) carriers have already signed onto the Universal Profile part of the spec:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services#St...

Re: Google Is Taking Charge of the RCS Rollout

#39

Post by themacguffinman »

Nextgrid wrote: post #21
themacguffinman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU would take them to court before the rollout was finished.

Not sure. There’s strong competition in the market in the form of iMessage (and others - see WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc) so I doubt there would be grounds for an anti-trust lawsuit.

Messages is preinstalled. Regardless of strong competition in the messaging market, the EU would accuse Google of leveraging their dominance in another market (Google Apps on Android and Android itself) to assist Messages.

Re: Google Is Taking Charge of the RCS Rollout

#40

Post by dstaley »

I'm going to be really interested in seeing how this rolls out (that's assuming it ever does) in the United States. All four major carriers have RCS implementations, but as far as I can tell, none of them are interoperable or universal across devices. Would Google step in and offer a solution for all Android devices on a carrier? If so, would that interoperate with other carriers' RCS implementations?

Thinking about that makes me think rolling out to other countries prior to the US was a good idea.

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