Are US Operators’ Interactive Messaging Dreams Dead?

A joint rich communications services (RCS) venture between the country’s nationwide operators and Synchronoss appears to be no closer to reality than when it was first announced almost 17 months ago. A joint rich communications services (RCS) venture between the country’s nationwide operators and Synchronoss appears to be no closer to reality than when it was first announced almost 17 months ago. The Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative, a U.S. industry-wide effort to finally, after more than a decade of development, bring the interoperable messaging standard to the masses, has effectively stalled or been abandoned as a group effort. Details about the progress or status of this joint initiative from AT&T, T-Mobile US, Verizon, and Synchronoss are not forthcoming and the responses SDxCentral received from each are not aligned.  AT&T and T-Mobile US spokespersons said there are no updates at this time. A Verizon spokesperson said it’s “actively working on the development, integration, and testing of the cross-carrier RCS platform,” but declined to share anything beyond that. And Synchronoss, the vendor that won the contract to provide the platform, declined multiple interview requests, claiming it’s under a strict non-disclosure agreement that prevents it from sharing details about the initiative. Collectively, the lack of transparency about the cross-carrier project signals that operators have pulled back on the objective or at least deemphasized the opportunity as a nationwide platform. RCS, for all intents and purposes, is already deployed and actively used by all three nationwide operators but its use is almost nonexistent to the extent that operators have long hoped to achieve. “It was their last big hope for a piece of advertising,” Roger Entner, founder and lead analyst at Recon Analytics, explained.  Indeed, the market opportunity operators have long coveted is already largely controlled in the U.S. by Apple, Google, and multiple Facebook apps. Interactive business-to-consumer messaging and integrated sales is a business that carriers capture little value from today, and that’s what they’d like to change with RCS. “[RCS] lives, it’s just not living to its full potential,” Entner said, adding that many services are delivered upon RCS but the interactive benefits, including retail promotions and in-app sales, have yet to be deployed at scale within carrier-delivered platforms in the U.S. That could change eventually, but “I don’t know if and when,” Entner said.  The big three operators initially said the cross-carrier RCS platform would support Android devices in 2020, but it made no mention of iPhones, which command about half of the U.S. smartphone market. Google already rolled RCS into its Android messaging app starting in 2019, and Apple, which provides a robust iMessage service to its customers, has yet to show any interest in adopting RCS. In both cases, the leading mobile device platform providers have already established and operate wildly popular mobile messaging services that serve their interests today, particularly as they capture the ad revenue generated by those services. The reality today, as it was in 2019 when the carriers announced this initiative, is that interactive messaging services and related ad revenue is already controlled by the tech giants.  Operators missed their chance with RCS and there’s nothing to suggest that dynamic will change even if they do someday deploy a cross-carrier platform.