S T R A T E G I C

W H I T E

P A P E R

Rich Communication Suite: Experience Enrichment for

Business Enablement

With many new communication modes available, Telcos have a unique opportunity to
combine the best of telecommunications and the Internet, to make any communication
mode available anywhere, on any screen, in a unified way. Under the umbrella of the Global
System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), service providers and equipment
vendors, in particular Alcatel-Lucent, are working together on the Rich Communication
Suite (RCS) initiative, for offering worldwide interoperable communication services.
Leveraging IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) infrastructures, such services are taking the
user experience to the next level, opening up advanced mobile communications to
fixed-mobile convergence, and to Web 2.0 integration.

Table of contents
1

RCS momentum

Meeting service challenges

RCS: past, present and future

RCS Release 1

RCS Release 2

RCS in the future

Key feature: interoperability

Strong market traction

Meeting user needs

What will RCS do?

Alcatel-Lucent leadership

A broad expertise and a comprehensive portfolio

A key actor with a vision

Conclusion

Abbreviations

References

Web sites

White papers

Press releases

Analyst reports

RCS momentum
Under the umbrella of the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), a group
of industry players are working together on the Rich Communication Suite (RCS) initiative, promoting
standards for delivering an interoperable, convergent, access-technology-independent rich communication
experience to end users.
RCS is now an industry-leading initiative, with more than 75 operators and vendors supporting it,
growing almost threefold between July 2008 and July 2009. Strongly supported by Alcatel-Lucent as
one of the most active contributors, RCS has members worldwide and unites network operators and
system integrators with vendors of end-user terminals, device client software, network equipment and
end-user applications. It provides a common base for addressing multiple customer requirements and
allows service providers to attract new subscriptions and increase communication-services use.
Meeting service challenges
Todays users have access to an incredible, ever-increasing array of communication modes, including
mobile phones, Instant Messaging (IM), Short Message Service (SMS), multimedia content sharing,
social networks and others. While this variety offers an entirely new range of possibilities, these features
also sometimes compete and are mainly supported in silos, making it more difficult for consumers to
benefit from them and limiting access devices to fully featured smart phones.
The telecommunication industry is now working on breaking down these barriers by collaborating
on the RCS program. Using an end-to-end approach to define a clear set of available communication
services, RCS offers rich communication services leveraging an IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem)
infrastructure.
The Alcatel-Lucent vision matches the RCS initiative perfectly, as an unprecedented way to swing
back to the service providers side the innovations and business potential laying in communication
applications, first in mobile, then in all domains side. It leverages their unique capacity to offer and drive
mainstream adoption of the new universal communication service to their four billion interconnected
subscribers. Interoperability is key to differentiating from the over the top (OTT) application silos.
The RCS initiative is gaining strong momentum today to offer a global, interoperable system:
Second release of RCS specifications finalized in July 2009
Multicarrier trials underway in 2009 in several countries
More and more devices available
More and more members joining the RCS consortium: network operators, telecommunications
vendors, application providers and handset manufacturers

Today a mobile user utilises separate and distinct services, resulting in a disconnected
communications experience. RCS addresses this issue by providing enhanced and integrated
services that can be customisable. The ability to utilise the core components of RCS to
enhance other applications and services is very compelling, and RCS represents an important
milestone for operators to offer and market seamless and differentiated service capabilities.
Diane Myers, Directing Analyst for Service Provider VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research

Rich Communication Suite: Experience Enrichment for Business Enablement | Strategic White Paper

RCS: past, present and future

Established in May 2007, the RCS project was integrated into the GSMAs work program in August 2008,
to develop and provide a stable and proven standard framework for the definition of business models,
interworking guidelines and technical-reference implementation.
RCS does not define new standards, but simply takes a pragmatic approach to bring already-defined
services quickly to the market, and sets the foundation for a global interoperability program that ensures
a worldwide service. It leverages existing standards such as IMS, presence and video sharing, and defines
the appropriate architecture to open them to Web 2.0.
RCS Release 1
From an end-user service perspective, the GSMA issued the first technical specification for RCS in
December 2008. It defines the feature set for the first version of the service suite, and ensures that
vendors are able to develop standard and interoperable implementations. The specification outlines
the requirements for features, including:
Enhanced Address Book to provide presence and capability indications, allow users to initiate
communications, including voice calls, video calls, file transfers or messaging, and allow users
to integrate multimedia elements, such as photos of contacts.
Rich Call to allow users to exchange different types of content, such as video or photos, during
a call.
Rich Messaging to expand on traditional IM to simplify and unify multiple messaging mediums
and provide a richer user experience.
RCS Release 2
Aligned with the pre-defined roadmap, the second set of RCS technical specification (RCS Release 2)
was released in June 2009, largely extending RCS to the fixed domain, for example, PC in residential domain:
RCS functionality on PCs: Voice over IP (VoIP), presence, Packet Switched (PS)-based video
sharing, chat and any Software Installation Manager (xSIM) authentication.
Multiscreen experience: communication management on several devices and initial chat message
to all registered devices.
Network Address Book (NAB): backup, restore and retrieval and multidevice synchronization
based on Synchronization Markup Language (SyncML).
Provisioning: based on Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Data Synchronization and Device
Management, with settings locking and automatic updates.
RCS in the future
Future releases of RCS service are currently being defined, anticipating features such as web-services
or social-network integration. In addition to the fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) features offered by
RCS Release 2, future RCS specifications will integrate web services by either using or offering application
programming interfaces (APIs). This feature will allow an entirely new range of services, integrating,
for example, location information and advertising features.
Important future RCS features also include security, privacy, identification and authentication. These
questions are of increasing concern to all users, who trust their network operator much more than
web sites for securing their data. PC or Internet services authenticated using their SIM cards are
clearly perceived as more trustworthy by end users.

Rich Communication Suite: Experience Enrichment for Business Enablement | Strategic White Paper

Key feature: interoperability

On the technology front, RCS has set up a global context to ensure interoperability of all devices
and platforms, inside and across operator networks. An important round of interoperability testing
took place at the beginning of 2009 during a test fest co-hosted by Orange, SFR and Alcatel-Lucent.
To test RCS services, 14 companies, including Orange and SFR as network providers, and Alcatel-Lucent
and Nokia Siemens Networks as infrastructure suppliers, and many other operators, handset and client
vendors, came together. During a one-week period, participants initiated more than 7000 RCS sessions,
testing core services, including Enhanced Address Book, content sharing and Enhanced Messaging, over
eight different handsets. These sessions were a success and represented the first joint multinetwork
and multisupplier tests of RCS.
This has been an important step for RCS and Alcatel-Lucent will host other test fests in the
future, in particular the one scheduled for end of 2009 or early 2010.
Strong market traction

In a world where mobile communications is quickly evolving, operators worldwide need

to continue driving voice and data usage while enriching the communications experience.
RCS aims to unify the communications experience by integrating presence, voice, chat,
and multimedia services seamlessly to the user. It is an attractive opportunity considering
the total available market of 1 billion worldwide 3G subscribers that will exist in 2010.
However, the success of RCS hinges on a number of factors, including operators achieving
service interoperability and native integration of RCS in mobile devices. If done right, though,
service providers will be able to tap into increased revenue streams from services and
applications, particularly mobile broadband, text messaging, and data services.
Diane Myers, Directing Analyst, Service Provider VoIP and IMS, Infonetics Research

With more and more devices tested over different networks, the last quarter of 2008 and the first
half of 2009 have seen a huge interest from the RCS markets, with many service providers moving
quickly toward RCS worldwide (see Figure 1). Europe is setting the pace:
In February three mobile service providers in France, Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom,
announced a countrywide trial in 4Q09, involving hundreds of friendly users with different device
models. Alcatel-Lucent is actively supporting these operators with its IMS and RCS offer.
Other RCS trials are being initiated in many countries throughout Europe from fall 2009, with
the first commercial deployments expected for 2010. Alcatel-Lucent supports in particular many
trials to take place throughout Europe in 2H09.
Originating in Europe, this trend is also spreading to other parts of the world:
In Asia, KTF and SKT have just announced the launch of the first pre-RCS commercial service.
As well, Alcatel-Lucent has recently completed two RCS lab trials in Asia, upgraded with added,
purpose-designed use cases, and has one commercial deployment planned in 2010.
In North America, AT&T has pioneered the deployment of RCS-like applications with video-share
services, based on Alcatel-Lucent IMS. Alcatel-Lucent is supporting two RCS lab trials in the
region and a commercial deployment is planned for 2010, based on its RCS solution.

Rich Communication Suite: Experience Enrichment for Business Enablement | Strategic White Paper

Figure 1: Expected ramp up of subscribers by region from 2009 to 2013

Source: Infonetics, May 2009

Meeting user needs

We live in a world where users want to be able to communicate and share information any place, any
time, over any device and with any of their friends. Today, a mobile user uses separate services, resulting
in a disconnected communication experience. RCS addresses this issue by providing enhanced and
integrated services that can be customized. The ability to use the core RCS components to enhance
other applications and services is very compelling, and RCS represents an important milestone for
operators to offer and market seamless and differentiated service capabilities.
In early summer 2009, Alcatel-Lucent led primary market research to better understand the user needs
and meet them with our solutions. This research demonstrated that RCS Release 1-type features are
meeting some of the most popular needs of the users interviewed (16 years to 45 years old, for consumer
and professional use):
Professional users and consumers older than 25 are interested in managing their increasing number
of contacts, centralizing their data and communicating in a more reactive way.
Teens and young adults see more value in the availability and reachability of their contacts, as well
as the ability to chat with several people at one time.
All users want a service that is easy to use, without downloading, installing or configuring applications,
and most of all, that would be available on inexpensive phones and not limited to elaborate devices.
All users want to be able to share content and use rich communication services such as picture,
video or file sharing with their contacts even if they are using different types of handsets and are
connected on another operators network.
RCS Release 2-type features were tested as well, and users exhibited a similar appetite for the capabilities
defined (see Figure 2):
On the PC side, users seek to extend the comfort of an integrated communication environment,
such as combining voice, IM and SMS, from a mobile handset to a residential PC, to be able to
send text messages more easily and have access to the content they shared earlier.

Rich Communication Suite: Experience Enrichment for Business Enablement | Strategic White Paper

This study shows that end users believe that

mobile or Internet-provider operators are in the
best position to offer these types of services,
compared to pure Internet players, such as
Google, Yahoo, Apple, or smaller OTT
application providers. Furthermore, users
are ready to pay for access to this service.

Value of RCS for end users

Unified and enriched user experience

Presence and reachability services
In-call content sharing
Security and interoperability

Figure 2: Range of Alcatel-Lucent devices and services enabled for RCS and beyond

What will RCS do?

In the context of ever-increasing siloed-application offers relying on fully featured smart phones,
the RCS initiative is, first and foremost, an unprecedented way to swing the innovation in mobile
communication applications back to the operators side. It leverages their unique capacity to offer
and drive mainstream adoption of the new universal communication service to their four billion
interconnected subscribers. Alone you go faster, but together we go further: interoperability is key
to differentiating from the silos offered by OTT applications.
With RCS, network operators have an innovative way to offer a suite of functions and APIs to mobile
application developers that is not dependent on a given handset or handset vendor. Furthermore, along
with the Alcatel-Lucent application-enablement vision, the operator can extend this suite of functions
with capabilities beyond RCS, including location, multiscreen content sharing and e-commerce,
allowing their partners to deliver applications mashing-up communication, social networking and
information sharing, among others.

Rich Communication Suite: Experience Enrichment for Business Enablement | Strategic White Paper

The RCS Release 2 specification offers network operators an opportunity to explore a promising
evolution path: allowing converged operators to reinvestigate the domain of innovative residential
communications, by intelligently leveraging their stronger mobile applications. Combining mobile-phone
convenience with PC ease-of-use, converged network operators have the unique opportunity to offer
true multidevice personalization, where, for example, the Network Address Book, presence, voice mail,
SMS, chat message and call notifications are available from any device the user chooses to operate.
RCS plays as well a strategic role in the rise of Long Term Evolution (LTE), where IMS is the only
long-term solution for allowing voice communication that is end-to-end IP-based. By introducing RCS
as early as possible over Third-Generation (3G) data access, mobile network operators can anticipate
the IMS-infrastructure deployment within their wireless network, facilitating their migration to LTE.
It also facilitates migrating end users, who are already registered with the operators Home Subscriber
Server (HSS) and already familiar with IMS-capable phones, to LTE. RCS is also an excellent way to
leverage LTE capabilities and foster service revenues as their access networks evolve to high-speed
wireless broadband.
Figure 3 shows the expected ramp-up of RCS service revenue, based on the fees operators will
charge for these capabilities.
Figure 3: Expected ramp-up of RCS revenue

Source: Infonetics, May 2009

No company, not even Google, is rich enough to support all the many mobile platforms
in existence, and that will force most vendors, operators and users away from an app
store model that will only get more fragmented.
Vic Gundotra, Google VP of Engineering, July 09

Rich Communication Suite: Experience Enrichment for Business Enablement | Strategic White Paper

The vision of Alcatel-Lucent goes far beyond RCS. Fueled by our application-enablement vision and
as demonstrated at many major tradeshows in 2009, such as Mobile World Congress and CTIA-The
Wireless Association, our offer is allowing service providers to enrich communication services for their
end users. The Alcatel-Lucent approach not only supports the RCS feature set, but also integrates
with Converged IP Messaging (CPM) and communication on IP-based television (IPTV), allowing
users to communicate without barriers.

Alcatel-Lucent leadership
A broad expertise and a comprehensive portfolio
Alcatel-Lucent IMS applications have recently been deployed in more than 65 networks. Such
deployments, featuring innovative applications such as Enhanced Address Book, presence, IM and
video sharing, offer an irreplaceable multiyear experience in pre-RCS type of applications, when RCS
had not yet been invented. Of particular interest is the deployment of a video-share application at
AT&T initiated more than two years ago, which constituted the first large-scale pre-RCS deployment
in the world. Today, Alcatel-Lucent RCS has been selected by more than 15 service providers worldwide,
including leading European network operators, the largest North American and leading Asian ones.
Two recent announcements exemplify the Alcatel-Lucent RCS leading expertise: SFR, Bouygues
Telecom and Oranges RCS live-marketing trial in 4Q09 where Alcatel-Lucent is actively supporting
these operators with its IMS & RCS offer; and launch of an RCS Release 2 trial in Spain with AlcatelLucent support. These projects, as well as many other ones, give us the position as the clear leader
in RCS.
A key actor with a vision
Alcatel-Lucent is a leading contributor to the RCS initiative, with several chairmanship positions on
standards-setting committees. We have taken the leadership role in interoperability testing performed
during test fests, where our RCS proved to be the most interoperable product available.
In addition, Alcatel-Lucent not only leverages the leading IMS portfolio; we rely on our capacity to
research, analyze and anticipate end-user expectations, thanks to our unique Market Advantage Program
and the Bell-Labs innovation powerhouse. Recent tradeshows, such Mobile World Congress 2009,
demonstrated our unique capacity to innovate and anticipate future potential evolutions of the RCS
offer with attractive and innovative applications.
This standards-compliance and openness, combined with the Alcatel-Lucent vision toward application
enablement, allow service providers to partner with todays and tomorrows leader in this market,
for leveraging a large potential ecosystem of partners and delivering attractive and differentiated
telecommunication applications to their subscribers.

Alcatel-Lucent is an active member of the GSMA Rich Communication Suite program,

holding leadership positions and making contributions in technical and go-to-market aspects.
Alcatel-Lucents IMS core network and application servers are an RCS reference platform
supporting, for example, the GSMA RCS TestFest in January 2009.
Joe McGarvey, Current Analysis, IMS Service Delivery Platform, May 26, 2009

Rich Communication Suite: Experience Enrichment for Business Enablement | Strategic White Paper

Conclusion
GSMA RCS is a collaborative effort to define an advanced platform of feature sets and applications
for users, network providers, device manufacturers and client developers, enriching existing mobile and
fixed telecommunication services. These enriched services are not only attractive and innovative, but
also interoperate across many devices and many networks; for a successful launch, interoperability
is essential as an incentive for users to use services.
RCS speeds up and facilitates introducing commercial IMS-based communication services, targeting
commercial interoperability across vendors and operators. The RCS initiative has defined a first core
feature set for mobile handsets and has successfully tested interoperability across multiple devices and
network infrastructures. As the initiative now engages in new phases, new sets of specifications are
defined for extending this initial feature set toward fixed access, FMC and Web 2.0 integration.
Offering industry-leading experience in IMS and RCS, a comprehensive product portfolio, a leading
market position and a unique vision, Alcatel-Lucent is the natural partner of choice for any operator
interested in deploying RCS, trialing it, or even simply learning more about the potential of this initiative.

Abbreviations
3G

Third-Generation

NAB

Network Address Book

API

application programming interface

OMA

Open Mobile Alliance

CPM

Converged IP Messaging

OTT

over the top

FMC

fixed-mobile convergence

PS

Packet Switched

GSM

Global System for Mobile Communications

RCS

Rich Communications Suite

GSMA

the GSM Association

SIM

Software Installation Manager

HSS

Home Subscriber Server

SMS

Short Message Service

IM

Instant Messaging

SyncML

Synchronization Markup Language

IMS

IP Multimedia Subsystem

UMTS

Universal Mobile Telecommunications System

IPTV

Internet Protocol television

VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol

LTE

Long Term Evolution

References
Web sites
GSMA Rich Communication Suite program:
http://www.gsmworld.com/our-work/mobile_lifestyle/rcs/
White papers
Alcatel-Lucent whitepaper: Making a difference: Achieving competitive distinction through the
Rich Communication Suite (PDF):
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/portal/!ut/p/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzK
Ld4w3cnXWL8h2VAQAOJCdBQ!!?LMSG_CABINET=Docs_and_Resource_Ctr&LMSG_
CONTENT_FILE=White_Papers/CAR9718081110_RCS_strategy_swp.pdf
Press releases
Rich Communication Suite Initiative Gains Momentum:
http://www.gsmworld.com/newsroom/press-releases/2009/2531.htm
Bouygues Telecom chooses Alcatel-Lucents IMS solution to commercially test new multimedia
communications services:
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/portal/NewsReleases/Detail?LMSG_CABINET=Docs_and_
Resource_Ctr&LMSG_CONTENT_FILE=News_Releases_2009/News_Article_001582.xml
8

Rich Communication Suite: Experience Enrichment for Business Enablement | Strategic White Paper

 Alcatel-Lucent collaborates with Telefnica in live demonstration of Rich Communication Suite

services at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with other key telecommunications vendors:
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/portal/!ut/p/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLd4w3MfQFSYGYRq6m-pEoYgbxjgiRIH1vfV-P_NxU_QD9gtzQiHJHR0UAAD_zXg!!/
delta/base64xml/L0lJayEvUUd3QndJQSEvNElVRkNBISEvNl9BX0U4QS9lbl93dw!!?LM
SG_CABINET=Docs_and_Resource_Ctr&LMSG_CONTENT_FILE=News_Releases_2009/
News_Article_001432.xml%20
Worlds First Rich Communication Suite-based Service Now Live in South Korea:
http://www.gsmworld.com/newsroom/press-releases/2009/3443.htm
Alcatel-Lucent Rich Communications Manager provides next generation of unified communications:
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/portal/NewsReleases/Detail?LMSG_CABINET=Docs_and_
Resource_Ctr&LMSG_CONTENT_FILE=News_Releases_2009/News_Article_001507.xml
Analyst reports
Infonetics report: RCS subscribers to hit 1.3 million in 2010, led by Western Europe:
http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2009/RCS-rich-communications-suite-market-research-highlights.asp
Current Analysis report: IMS Service Delivery Platform, May 26, 2009

Rich Communication Suite: Experience Enrichment for Business Enablement | Strategic White Paper

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