A new thought-leadership research paper

Rich Communications Suite:

Why IMS RCS will fail as a massmarket service – and how to salvage it

Published September 2010 - 57 pages

This report is a critical examination of the Rich Communications Suite, a proposed feature-set and associated range of services for mobile phones, based on the IMS platform, which covers applications such as presence, messaging, enhanced contact-lists and file/content-sharing. The RCS Initiative is administered and championed by the GSMA.

Disruptive Analysis has been a long-term critic of RCS as a suitable standard for mobile communications – both in terms of its underlying technology base and its commercial model. Following on from a detailed and ground-breaking 2006 report on IMS-capable handsets, as well as various posts on the “Disruptive Wireless” blog, this document presents a forensic analysis of the key reasons why RCS is unlikely to become ubiquitous, nor drive mobile industry revenues forward.

While there may be some limited adoption in the near term, Disruptive Analysis believes that many of the underlying rationales for RCS are flawed – and potentially may divert operators’ attentions from more important and appealing innovations and business models. While the report highlights some potential use-case niches, the notion that RCS might become a future “core” service for mobile seems extremely flawed.

The objective of the report is to help mobile operators and technology vendors prioritise their resources and investments into more profitable areas. It also highlights the broader future dynamics of mobile person-to-person communications – defining the background against which any operator-hosted service must fit.

Contents

Introduction

	
Structure of this document	

IMS RCS – background and history	
	Introduction to IMS in the mobile industry	
	IMS handsets…. Or not.	
	RCS history	
	RCS phases and releases	
	RCS members	
	Creating technology interfaces vs. creating services	

Mobile operators & future industry structure
	Ubiquitous basic services vs. fragmented innovation	
	The dumb pipe & “over the top” myth	
	Polarising into voice- and non-voice operators?	
	Six mobile operator strategies for future voice & personal communications	
	Indicators of specific operators’ IMS and future voice/messaging strategies	
	Assumptions and legacies in the telecom industries	

1. The wrong starting point? Not “Comms 2.0”

2. Lack of open developer platform	

3. Device considerations & battery life	

4. Phonebook is a poor metaphor	

5. Is RCS-style presence the right approach?

	
6. Fit with prepaid services	

7. Fit with existing social networking services	

8. Poor fit with typical user behaviour

9. The iPhone & BlackBerry problem	
	Apple	
	BlackBerry	

10. IMS business case and revenue model	

11. Poor fit with business / corporate needs	

12. RCS client vs. web application	
	Ease of updates and tuning of the user experience	

13. Other issues	
	RCS on non-mobile devices	
	RCS and MVNOs	
	Miscellaneous	

Can RCS be rescued?	
	Focus on specific use cases, not ubiquity	
	Lessons from MMS	
	Niche communities and virtualised RCS	
		Virtualised RCS / communication “malls”	
		Closed user groups	
		Hidden and “over the top” RCS	
	Telco operational use of RCS	
		Customer service	
		Network notifications and engagement	
		Internal use	
	Web-based RCS	
	Net neutrality workaround

	
Conclusions & forecasts	
	Summary	
	Forecasts and predictions	
		Considerations	
		Quantitative predictions

	
Recommendations	
	Recommendations for operators	
	Recommendations for device vendors	
	Recommendations for network vendors	
	Recommendations for Internet companies	

Background to this study	
About Disruptive Analysis	

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