As is typical at the beginning of the year, wireless industry experts have been busy making predictions for 2013. It's no surprise that RCS is expected to see continued adoption this year, after U.S.–based MetroPCS and operators throughout Europe jumped on board in 2012. Branded as joyn by the GSM Association, RCS is the wireless industry's response to competition from OTT services like WhatsApp and Skype.
I tuned into an interesting webinar by Analysys Mason this morning, which reviewed the impact of OTT services in Western Europe based on an October 2012 survey. The analyst noted that although the effect of OTTs varies by country, messaging revenue in this region is expected to decline on the whole by 39 percent between 2011 and 2017. He pointed out that the power of RCS lies in the fact that it is a cross-platform service, offering ubiquity that closed OTT options, such as BlackBerry Messenger and iMessage, cannot.
Several members of our sales and marketing team will be discussing the benefits of RCS with rural U.S. operators at the 2013 Wireless Symposium being held today through Friday at the Grand Hyatt in San Antonio. If you're attending the show, be sure to attend the session, “The Long and Short on Selling Your Mobile Services.” Damian Sazama, our VP of Corporate and Product Marketing, will be discussing how operators can successfully market new services like RCS in an effort to maintain subscriber loyalty.
