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RCS for Business

developers.google.com

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Re: RCS for Business

#61

Post by hocuspocus »

zinekeller wrote: post #55
dfajgljsldkjag wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> plus the fact that Google actually shoehorns RCS in countries where they think they can get away with it. This is the real thing that nails down "RCS" as a totally google thing. Google will forcefully enable RCS for people on carriers that want nothing to do with it. And in that case Google controls the entire process every single step of the way.

Just for the record, I am not necessarily disagreeing with "let's replace SMS", but Google can do it via a value-added service, which is much less regulated in most countries. Heck, Google already had it with Hangouts, and in my personal opinion it was just plain better than with Messenger. It was technically inferior with Whatsapp having E2E, but some people do prefer having a portable archive of their messages stor…

It's indeed hard to overstate how much Google fumbled the bag given their position. Early Android adopters came from GMail and almost invariably used GTalk on desktop. We had video chat over 3G in 2011 before iOS. But somehow they had to rewrite the app and try to ship an half-assed SMS integration in Hangouts as reaction to iMessage. Google should really have tried buying WhatsApp more seriously, at least we'd have seen some real competition between WhatsApp and FB Messenger.

> I won't be shocked it it will be treated as a carrier with licenses et al.

So, the way it works:

The GSMA isn't some kind of monolithic entity with a great deal of power. Industry players with aligned interests come together, form groups and agree on specs and roadmaps. Technically, RCS should be mandatory with 5G. In practice, it took a great deal of time before a country actually enforced that (China).

Google has seemingly been at the helm of the RCS work group since 2015~2016 with the Jibe acquisition first, then the spec revamp, a.k.a. Universal Profile. RCS was essentially a zombie initiative after ~2012, Google saw an opportunity and filled the void. Telcos aren't stupid, they saw P2P messaging being wiped out by OTT services, and SMS is good enough for A2P. There was little incentive for them.

Now, after a lot of failed experiments, and pivoting from a semblance of federated network to a protocol almost controlled end-to-end, Google got what it wanted: iOS support in North America. The rest of the world is mostly lost to WhatsApp and friends anyway.

Carriers that are on board with Google need to enable the standard registration mechanism used by the iOS client. It shouldn't be a big deal by the way, IMS is central to 4G/5G deployments for VoLTE, VoWiFi, SMSoIP, ... but this changes one important thing from a legal standpoint: now the service isn't provided by Google through an ad-hoc client (Google Messages), but by your carrier.

That said, Google can sell SaaS solutions to carriers. It's up to them to comply with local laws when they decide to provide RCS, regardless of the backend.

I think the EU has bigger fish to fry with the DMA. But Google's tactics might eventually come to someone's attention, as they essentially cornered carriers into adopting Jibe, or giving up on RCS. Somehow the only country that didn't let that happen is South Korea.

Moreover Android could separate the RCS client frontend and backend, like it does for SMS and MMS. But realistically most OEMs don't seem to care, and third party SMS apps are fairly niche.

Re: RCS for Business

#62

Post by hocuspocus »

Elfener wrote: post #54
the_arun wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the difference between RCS & Whatsapp messages? Aren't they similar?

When you use Whatsapp, you're trusting a single entity to handle your messages (plus your ISP I guess). When you use RCS, your messages go through your mobile operator, google, and perhaps someone else in an overly complicated way that is also built upon SMS (a non-internet thing) for more confusion.

Message payloads go directly to Google servers, there's no difference in practice.

Carriers handle IMS registration, that's it. And not even in all cases.

Re: RCS for Business

#63

Post by jeroenhd »

cyberax wrote: post #58
jeroenhd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They likely won't be able to connect to their mobile network's RCS And why is that? Assuming your carrier bothers to run RCS, the protocol works just like MMS and SMS do. If your operator doesn't peer with other operators then you'll have the same issues getting any kind of multimedia delivered from phone to phone. > It is. The Google's RCS endpoint requires attestation that is available through Play API only. Anno…

> And why is that? Assuming your carrier bothers to run RCS, the protocol works just like MMS and SMS do. Correct. And it took more than a decade to get MMSC interoperability. It's still not perfect even now. And mobile network operators were incentivized to enable MMSC peering because it was typically a pay-per-message service with hefty fees. > Annoying, though hardly unexpected at this point. Still, that only pose…

> And it took more than a decade to get MMSC interoperability. It's still not perfect even now.

That's an understatement, my carrier has disabled MMS years ago. Still, that's not an issue with the MMS protocol, just an issue with carriers.

> That's a distinction without difference in the US.

The American carriers including Jibe in their network still speak RCS to clients. Google's Jibe is the most prevalent remaining RCS server but carrier Jibe isn't using the proprietary protocol that Google Messages uses (otherwise it wouldn't work on iPhones).

Looking at https://support.apple.com/en-us/108048, https://support.apple.com/en-us/118609, and https://support.apple.com/en-us/109526, carrier-based RCS is available in quite a few places. Nowhere near as prevalent as SMS/MMS hubs once were, but that has to do with the fact that in many countries SMS and MMS have been replaced by third-party apps over a decade ago.

Re: RCS for Business

#64

Post by iboshoer »

Founder of Clerk Chat here, I work with RCS for Business day in and day out and know the protocol inside and out.

A lot of the criticism in this thread is fair from a client / handset perspective, but it’s important to separate consumer RCS from RCS for Business. On the business side, RCS is actually a very powerful, well-designed protocol with massive potential when used the way it was intended: verified senders, conversational flows, and rich interactions at scale.

At Clerk Chat, we’re leading the way on conversational RCS, not just blasting messages, but enabling real two-way conversations that feel native, secure, and useful. Yes, Google is the gatekeeper as well as carriers today, but that’s also what enables trust, verification, and deliverability at global scale. When you work with the ecosystem instead of against it, it’s surprisingly effective.

We’re investing heavily in RCS because we believe it’s the natural evolution of business messaging beyond SMS. For companies that want to engage users where they already are with rich UI, fast responses, and verified identity, RCS is hard to beat.

If you’re interested in exploring what’s actually possible with RCS for Business today, feel free to reach out. Happy to enable folks and share real-world learnings.

Igor, Founder @ Clerk Chat

Re: RCS for Business

#65

Post by cyberax »

jeroenhd wrote: post #63
cyberax wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And why is that? Assuming your carrier bothers to run RCS, the protocol works just like MMS and SMS do. Correct. And it took more than a decade to get MMSC interoperability. It's still not perfect even now. And mobile network operators were incentivized to enable MMSC peering because it was typically a pay-per-message service with hefty fees. > Annoying, though hardly unexpected at this point. Still, that only pose…

> And it took more than a decade to get MMSC interoperability. It's still not perfect even now. That's an understatement, my carrier has disabled MMS years ago. Still, that's not an issue with the MMS protocol, just an issue with carriers. > That's a distinction without difference in the US. The American carriers including Jibe in their network still speak RCS to clients. Google's Jibe is the most prevalent remaining…

> That's an understatement, my carrier has disabled MMS years ago. Still, that's not an issue with the MMS protocol, just an issue with carriers.

If a protocol requires something specific from carriers, then it's an issue with the protocol.

> The American carriers including Jibe in their network still speak RCS to clients.

Sure, and? It's still useless for me because it can't be used without Google Play.

Re: RCS for Business

#66

Post by jjtech »

jeroenhd wrote: post #51
cyberax wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LineageOS, GrapheneOS, /e/, and all the others could build their own RCS client And it will be useless. They likely won't be able to connect to their mobile network's RCS or to Google's RCS. A user with an official Android phone will be able to reach you only over regular SMS. The way RCS works, the mobile _operator_ uses your corresponder's phone number to look up their RCS server. So that's also why RCS connectiv…

> They likely won't be able to connect to their mobile network's RCS And why is that? Assuming your carrier bothers to run RCS, the protocol works just like MMS and SMS do. If your operator doesn't peer with other operators then you'll have the same issues getting any kind of multimedia delivered from phone to phone. > It is. The Google's RCS endpoint requires attestation that is available through Play API only. Anno…

> Assuming your carrier bothers to run RCS, the protocol works just like MMS and SMS do. If your operator doesn't peer with other operators then you'll have the same issues getting any kind of multimedia delivered from phone to phone.

Except, SMS/MMS can be implemented by any standard IMS stack and it will function on any carrier (in theory, ignoring implementation bugs/incompatibility);

RCS has an explicit provision in the standard for "client authenticity" checks which in practice means App Attest/Play Integrity signatures.

(see also: my comment above)

Re: RCS for Business

#67

Post by trollbridge »

hocuspocus wrote: post #27
trollbridge wrote: post #14

RCS is basically spam-only messaging at this point. You can enhance your messaging experience by just turning it off.

This seems very specific to a few regions, India mostly. Google is doing a really good job catching and blocking spam as far as I'm concerned. Even scammers aren't trying their luck over RCS in any way significant compared to Telegram, WhatsApp, or even iMessage.

Apparently India now includes part of the United States. I use an iPhone and RCS is a steady stream of spam to me. (My number is publicly listed.)
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