RCS messaging coming in iOS 18

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lchiu7

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#3289879 2-Oct-2024 09:05

SaltyNZ:

I don't think it will shock you to learn - not least because I've already discussed it on Geekzone before - that building an RCS service costs money (several $M). How much extra are you willing to pay on your monthly bill to get it? Nothing at all because you already get WhatsApp/Signal/Messenger/etc. for free?

Now you know why there weren't any RCS servers in NZ just waiting for the Apple launch.

Just wondering what is stopping the NZ telcos to use Google Jib servers which apparently is what the US carriers are doing?

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freitasm

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#3289883 2-Oct-2024 09:12

Because local telcos need to conform with the Telecommunications (Interception Capability & Security) Act 2013 | New Zealand Police and using Google servers wouldn't allow that.

SaltyNZ

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#3289888 2-Oct-2024 09:26

freitasm:

Because local telcos need to conform with the Telecommunications (Interception Capability & Security) Act 2013 | New Zealand Police and using Google servers wouldn't allow that.

And for whoever is about to reply "But I can already use the Google RCS on my Android phone" - that's different. Google is offering the service to you, and Google does not have to comply to TICSA. If we put Google's RCS into our carrier settings for you, then we would be offering the service, and we cannot offer any service where we cannot provide clear-text interception. Google's RCS supports (allegedly) true end-to-end encryption, so that would be non-compliant.

I say "allegedly" because Google isn't a charity. Their business model is to get in your head and push ads at you. No way they aren't snooping RCS traffic for extra ad-pushing insight.

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freitasm

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#3289896 2-Oct-2024 09:38

SaltyNZ:

I say "allegedly" because Google isn't a charity. Their business model is to get in your head and push ads at you. No way they aren't snooping RCS traffic for extra ad-pushing insight.

ALTRON

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#3289912 2-Oct-2024 10:32

All typically disappointing.

SaltyNZ

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#3289939 2-Oct-2024 10:50

ALTRON: All typically disappointing.

Hey, people complaining here is literal ammunition for me and no doubt also my counterparts to use when we go back to our bosses next budget round. So as far I'm concerned, complain away.

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lchiu7

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#3289940 2-Oct-2024 10:54

SaltyNZ:
ALTRON: All typically disappointing.

Hey, people complaining here is literal ammunition for me and no doubt also my counterparts to use when we go back to our bosses next budget round. So as far I'm concerned, complain away.

Count me as one who is disappointed especially when my whole family is on IOS apart from me.

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mrgsm021

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#3289962 2-Oct-2024 11:37

Maybe the title of this thread should be updated to "RCS messaging coming in iOS 18...not"

amanzi

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#3290010 2-Oct-2024 12:58

I will happily join in the complaining! I'm the only one in my family on Android and really need to get RCS working across platforms. Despite my best attempts to force the rest of my family to use WhatsApp, I still get lots of plain old SMS messages from iPhones. Very frustrating!

I will move my family's four connections to the first mobile operator to fully support RCS!

MikeFly

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#3290083 2-Oct-2024 14:26

SaltyNZ:

I say "allegedly" because Google isn't a charity. Their business model is to get in your head and push ads at you. No way they aren't snooping RCS traffic for extra ad-pushing insight.

Ahhhh, that explains why all my ads are for penis enlargement pills.

lchiu7

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#3290410 3-Oct-2024 10:58

amanzi:

I will happily join in the complaining! I'm the only one in my family on Android and really need to get RCS working across platforms. Despite my best attempts to force the rest of my family to use WhatsApp, I still get lots of plain old SMS messages from iPhones. Very frustrating!

I will move my family's four connections to the first mobile operator to fully support RCS!

Based on this site (posted earlier in this thread)

https://support.apple.com/en-us/109510

there are no carriers in Asia/Pacific supporting RCS and not that many in the EU also, where the requirement came from.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

spacedog

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#3290415 3-Oct-2024 11:25

SaltyNZ:

ALTRON: All typically disappointing.

Hey, people complaining here is literal ammunition for me and no doubt also my counterparts to use when we go back to our bosses next budget round. So as far I'm concerned, complain away.

Thanks for the explanation and consider my complaint lodged!

@SaltyNZ - Not surprised that RCS would require significant investment from the carrier side.

What about my question regarding the monetization of Text message services?
If RCS were built and deployed, does it kill some means by which the Telco can charge/profit from Text message service fees (add-on packs for low tier pre-pay plans with limited txts included)? My guess is that profit would be a pittance as I suspect most people are on unlimited text plans already so there's no extra profit to harvest from the customer base....or they are using Signal/WhatsApp/iMessage/GoogleRCS?

Alternately, would implementing RCS ultimately reduce congestion/overhead on existing infrastructure for a telco....or increase it? Seems everyone trying to text photos via SMS/MMS could be adding load to the network in really inefficient means when you have things like RCS/iMessage that push that rich/data-heavy content off the carrier network and onto people's various WiFi ISP networks that are more capable to carry photos/videos, etc...?

SaltyNZ

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#3290448 3-Oct-2024 13:00

Clearly I can't discuss specifics, even if I knew what they were, but you can see a few possible models:

Do nothing, everyone just gets it 100% free
It's free but you must be on a postpay plan/have an active prepay combo in order to use it
Charge a monthly fee
Charge per-message

I'm an engineer, not a business person, but my take on it is that (2) is the only model worth exploring. (2) is essentially the same model as SMS is these days although you would need to be careful about international interconnects as you would not want to cannibalise international SMS revenue. So maybe you start with national interconnects only as there is nothing to lose. The RCS server is smart enough to know that international destinations aren't connected and will forward any RCS messages to the SMSC for onward delivery (which will charge you as normal).

Realistically, nobody is going to pay a cent for it. And besides, even if the first operator out with it inexplicably chose (3) or (4), the second operator in the market would choose (2) so the first would immediately have to switch to (2) anyway.

I don't think it would make any real difference to 'premium' services as the bulk of those these days are paid for by third parties e.g. your bank when they send you a 2FA message. Either those will stay on SMS or if they move to RCS you will still charge the provider to deliver the RCS message. You could probably charge more for that since they could send richer content where that mattered - e.g. instead of just a text to remind you that your dentist appointment is tomorrow they could send you a calendar invite.

In terms of congestion it won't make any material difference - at best some traffic will move away from OTT services and onto RCS, but overall data throughput will be largely unaffected. They're both free, your behaviour won't change. MMS uses WAP 2.0 - which is just HTTP - to send media. Guess what RCS uses? At the moment all three carriers have a 300KB limit on MMS message sizes. RCS will be bigger, but again - if you want to send better than potato quality pictures between phones you're already doing it not with MMS so it won't make much difference in the end.

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ALTRON

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#3290526 3-Oct-2024 14:57

Do companies still clip the ticket 50 cents per MMS
If so, what an advanced age we live in.

richms

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#3290602 3-Oct-2024 17:34

ALTRON: Do companies still clip the ticket 50 cents per MMS
If so, what an advanced age we live in.

Sure do, and I am sure most of them are from when autocorrect has put a letter in a fancy word that SMS cant handle so the phone just sends it as an overpriced ripoff MMS instead.

Richard rich.ms

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