RCS[Rich communication service] is a communication protocol between mobile telephone carriers and between phone and carrier, aiming at replacing SMS messages with a text-message system that is richer, provides phonebook polling, and can transmit in-call multimedia.
The Rich Communication Suite industry initiative was formed by a group of industry promoters in 2007. In February 2008 the GSM Association officially became the project 'home' of RCS and an RCS steering committee was established by the organisation.
The scope of the steering committee's work was to entail the definition, testing, and integration of the services in the application suite known as RCS. Three years later, the RCS project released a new specification – RCS-e (e = 'enhanced'), which included various iterations of the original RCS specifications. The GSMA program is now called Rich Communication Services.
The GSMA published the Universal Profile in November 2016. The Universal Profile is a globally agreed, single GSMA specification for advanced communications. Carriers that deploy the Universal Profile guarantee interconnection with other carriers. 47 mobile network operators, 11 manufacturers, and 2 OS providers (Google and Microsoft) have announced their support. Google's Jibe Cloud platform is an implementation of the RCS Universal Profile, designed to help carriers launch RCS quickly and scale easily.
Samsung is the major device OEM to support RCS globally. Samsung RCS capable devices have been commercially launched in Europe since 2012 and in the United States since 2015.
Google supports RCS on Android devices with its Android SMS app Messages. In April 2018, it was reported that Google would be transferring the team that was working on its Google Allo messaging service to work on a wider RCS implementation, which will be marketed under the branding Chat.
READ ALSO: Google to roll out RCS Message with or without carriers
In June 2019, Google announced that it would begin to deploy RCS on an opt-in basis via the Messages app, with an RCS-compliant service hosted by Google rather than the user's carrier. The rollout of this functionality will begin in France and the United Kingdom, and it will be compatible with other RCS implementations compliant with the Universal Profile. In response to concerns over the lack of end-to-end encryption in RCS, Google stated that it would only retain message data in transit until it is delivered to the recipient.
Source: Wikipedia
Why RCS is important to Android
If you have ever used Apples's iMessge, what am going to say will make too much sence to you. iMessage alreading has everything and has been offering almost exactly everything that RCS is trying to put in place right now. From FaceTime, voice, vidoe calls, messages rich with great media and sharing and read receipts and typing indicators, iMessage have been superB.
Knowing fully well that about over 75% of the phones in the world use Android and can't use iMssage, this will will be a big deal if RCS is adopted to work in google devices.
iMessage is probably not or never coming to Android so RCS will be the best hope in bringing a great experience to every phone and the best thing to happen to Google.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://247creaks.com/blog/what-is-rcs-and-why-is-it-important-to-android/