Overview
Understand how Legacy Messaging of SMS/MMS is evolving to RCS with many advanced features related to Personal and Business Messaging., Know the RCS features and how standard bodies guide operators to deploy a network that will enable end subscribers and businesses use these functions., Understand High Level Network Architecture that Operators need to deploy to implement the features used by Subscribers and Businesses, To get a deeper understanding of how the Network functions interact, go over high-level end to end call flows related to the main RCS features., Even though all operators have agreed and want to deploy RCS in their networks, but we shall see some of the Obstacles and Challenges to deploy RCS., Looking at the complexity of RCS implementation, we shall cover very basic scenarios here and leave more complex scenarios for my Advanced course on RCS.
Anyone working for Wireless Operators or Handset Vendors and dealing with Messaging Aspects will be interested in this course., A wireless operator who is deploying new IMS network and thinking of deploying various messaging services over IP would like to get this basic understanding of RCS to all their Technical and Management workforce., If you are dealing with communication with Chatbots (may be powered by AI), you would like to know how the contents got displayed on your phone. This course will give you that overview.
If you have general information about how the Wireless Networks have evolved over time and in specific how the messaging has evolved over time, you will be interested in this course., You may be working at Management level or at Technical role relating to RCS implementation or maintaining the network nodes in operator network, you should have general understanding of what is involved in implementing RCS in the network. This course will help you get that high level understanding., In this course, we shall not go through the network architecture of various Generations of Wireless Networks but it is good to have that knowledge as background information., One Suggestion: Since there is so much technical material that is being discussed in each slide in this course, it is suggested to do this course on a big screen of computer or TV. If you see the slides on your cell phone, you may not appreciate it that much.
If your career and job have anything to do with Wireless Technology which have evolved from 1G to 5G, you will definitely be dealing with evolution of Messaging over different generation of Wireless Networks. As the subscriber's communication desires evolved from Voice calls to Messaging, there came the need for building more features in Messaging. That is what we call as Rich Communication Services (RCS).
This course is designed for beginners who would like to understand this topic of Messaging and Information Exchange with following agenda in different sections of this course.
Evolution from SMS for simple text Messaging to MMS for exchange of small images or files to RCS.
RCS includes very Rich Features where the user can do 1 to 1 messaging session or make Group Chat (1 to N) sessions to exchange small or large text messages or exchanging small or big files of all types in these chat sessions along with getting Delivery and Read receipts.
RCS functions are further extended to cover the latest requirements for Businesses called RCS for Business Messaging (RBM). Related to RBM, you will see how various Businesses also called Brands are using RCS technology to communicate with their current or potential customers. That is where we are referring to communication with Chatbots which may be powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). In this area we shall refer these chatbots as Applications and call this communication as A2P and P2A between Applications and Persons.
To understand RCS, we need to refer to the GSMA Guidelines laid out for Wireless Network Operators and Handset Providers so that RCS functions can be provided globally, and the subscriber can be in any part of the world but still be able to enjoy feature rich RCS functions.
This course will talk about the overall Network Architecture as defined by standard bodies and will explain the important functional elements that need to be built in the Operators' Network and also in Handsets used by subscribers.
We shall also go over various Protocols and Interfaces in the network that are used for Control and Data payload to implement RCS functions.
The best way to understand the RCS technology is to see each function in terms of End-to-End Call Flows where we shall see all the control and payload starting from Originating Subscriber to the Destination Subscriber through various network elements using standard interfaces and protocols.
To implement RCS at Global level including all Network Operators and Handset Providers have its own Challenges and Obstacles which we shall go over in this course.
Looking at the complexity of defining and implementing RCS functions, we are offering this course as an "Introduction to RCS" where we shall try to clarify the RCS concepts and make you understand this technology giving the simplest scenarios at architecture and call flow level. For more complex scenarios, I will add more "Advanced Course on RCS".
First one in the series that I have published is "RCS Chat Session A to Z" which delves into much more details on Chat Sessions.
And please stay tuned for my other upcoming courses on RCS.
Pardip Singh
I have a long career working on Wireless Technology spanning over all Generations of Wireless Networks starting from 1G to 5G with Wireless Network Operators or Wireless Network Equipment Vendors.
Most of the time my role was in highly technical positions of Network Engineering, System Engineering or Network Performance and optimization. These types of roles require in depth technical understanding of the project you are involved in.
My course contents on RCS and eSIM are developed using my hands on experience when working on Implementation of RCS with a Tier 1 Operators in USA.