Rich Communication Suite Initiative: key telecom industry players join forces to speed up the introduction of interoperable rich communication services
Paris, February 07, 2008
Today, a group of key operators, infrastucture and device vendors comprised of Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, TeliaSonera, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung, announced a joint effort to facilitate the evolution of mobile communication towards rich communication.
Together the participants have agreed upon a set of features originating from profiled IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) standards as well as implementation guidelines with the intention of having interoperable rich communication services available in 2008.
Consumers are now experiencing the power and the promise of converged and rich communication such as instant messaging, video sharing and buddy lists, which have introduced a new user experience.
Consumers expect that these capabilities are available on any type of devices and that there is open communication between devices and networks. With the Rich Communication Suite (RCS) these customer expectations can be fulfilled, and ever evolving services can be offered to enhance users' experience. The core feature set of RCS includes the following services:
Enhanced Phonebook, with service capabilities and presence enhanced contacts information
Enhanced Messaging, which enables a large variety of messaging options including chat and messaging history
Enriched Call, which enables multimedia content sharing during a voice call
The RCS Initiative is the joint effort of leading industry players to speed up and facilitate the adoption of applications and services that provide an interoperable, convergent, rich communication experience.
"This initiative is key to develop new communication experience in the mobile space. In this market, the user experience has never been more important. Orange is convinced that 'RCS initiative', driving interoperability between operators and vendors will contribute significantly to this above trend and finally ensure the success of enriched communication services", said Marc Fossier, CTO of France Telecom/Orange.
To speed up the introduction of rich communication services, the participants in the RCS Initiative has already:
defined a core feature set, leveraging existing standards, and implementation guideline specifications for an interoperable IMS-based communication suite. The IMS is an important architecture for fixed and mobile networks that bring these capabilities to the consumer in an interoperable way;
developed reference implementations of the services for commercial devices, and validated the underlying requirements and technical specifications for service interoperability;
conducted interoperability testing in multi-vendor environments to ensure and verify the maturity of the RCS feature set.
To ensure services availability in 2008, the RCS Initiative will continue to drive testing and interoperability in a multi-operator environment, as well as sharing the RCS specifications with relevant industry forums.
RCS showcase in Mobile World Congress in Barcelona
The RCS Initiative will present early results of these efforts in a showcase including a presentation and a live demonstration of the initial feature set.
RCS Initiative presents the showcase at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, in the seminar theater in Hall 7 on Feb 11 at 13-14 hours and Feb 13 at 12-13 hours.
About Orange
Orange is the key brand of France Telecom, one of the world's leading telecommunications operators. France Telecom serves more than 170 million customers in five continents as of December 31, 2007, of which two thirds are Orange customers. The Group had consolidated sales of 52.9 billion euros in 2007. As of December 31, 2007, the Group had 109.6 million mobile customers and 11.6 million broadband internet (ADSL) customers.
Launched in June 2005, the NExT program (New Experience in Telecommunications) will enable the Group to pursue its transformation as an integrated operator and make France Telecom the benchmark for new telecommunications services in Europe. In 2006, Orange became the Group's single brand for Internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the company operates, and Orange Business Services the banner for services offered to businesses worldwide. France Telecom is the number three mobile operator and the number one provider of broadband internet services in Europe and one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies.
France Telecom (NYSE:FTE) is listed on Euronext Paris and on the New York Stock Exchange.
For more information : www.orange.com, www.francetelecom.com, www.orange-business.com
Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trade marks of Orange Personal Communications Services Limited.
