Helping mobile telcos get 'over the top'

The solution is based on 'standard' Rich Communications Suite (RCS) which marks it out from what, one assumes, is the alternative 'Joyn' RCS approach as already deployed in Europe and Asia by at least some telcos. Joyn, however, uses an 'enhanced' version of RCS - RCSe - which is mostly enhanced by its having dropped a few of the features that were too difficult or looked a bit unnecessary following the passage of time (like presence).

Kineto is pushing its standard RCS as an OTT solution - designed to help operators compete and maintain relevance in messaging via the freemium route.

Kineto claims operators will be able to enhance their current telephony and SMS/MMS services with new capabilities, including chat, VoIP and video. It says that operators will be able to present slick OTT-style services as their own and claim a greater degree of reliability and stability for them.

Seeing services like WhatsApp already provide all this for next to free it's unlikely that telcos will be able to directly monetise the likes of Smart Comms as incremental revenue. More likely it will be used to strengthen the bundle and perhaps provide for some commercialisation at the edges (business messaging, advertising and so on).

It will be interesting to see how the RCS field pans out as different implementations compete for telcos' attention.

Kineto says it has 'Invite to Call', Social Snapshot, and Location Share, and enables telcos to extend their services' use beyond smartphones and onto tablets, televisions and PCs.