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August 04, 2014

Samsung's joyn Blackbird Accreditation for Galaxy Smartphones Gives Mobile Operators Hope

While it is true that mobile devices are being used to accomplish a lot of the tasks people once relied on PCs to handle, we are not at the point where these people are willing to give up Internet access. These days mobile commerce allows you to use your smartphones and tablets to shop on the go, while mobile payment options allow you to securely pay for your purchases.

We have seen that the deployment of LTE networks is expanding into more regions and emerging markets, so you could expect that smartphones would probably be used for just about everything. At least that is what mobile operators are expecting. It seems, however, that while they are, in fact, selling billions of mobile broadband subscriptions, looks as if people prefer to use Internet-based voice and messaging services, such as WhatsApp and Skype. This is something that is cutting into their traditional revenue stream.

Go figure, who would have thought that people would voice a voice app to talk on their smartphones! There is a possible solution that is giving mobile operators hope they can reclaim these services through Rich Communication Services, or RCS. The Rich Communication Services program is a GSM Association (GSMA) program for the creation of inter-operator communication services based on IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). It is marketed by the GSMA under the brand name joyn.

Using Rich Communications is supposed to bring you closer to the people in your mobile address book. This is accomplished by combining all the ways you want to be in touch, such as talk, chat and share videos, as well as photos and files.

The latest version of joyn has been named Blackbird. It was announced today that Samsung has secured joyn Blackbird for its range of flagship smartphones which is designed to improve multimedia communication services. The South Korean firm announced the accreditation on Monday, August 4, 2014, saying that Samsung is the first smartphone provider to secure the joyn Blackbird RCS standard.

This is something that operators, such as Orange, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom are relieved to hear. These operators have launched services based on the joyn specifications in an effort to help them compete. Essentially, the plan is to make traditional voice and text services more modern in an attempt to prevent users from switching to Internet-based offerings.

Some of the features that you can expect to see by using joyn include the ability to:

  • Switch to a video call
  • Share pictures during a voice call
  • Transfer files during group and one-to-one chats
  • Non-joyn users can access the content via an SMS.

J.K Shin, who is the CEO and head of IT & mobile communication at Samsung Electronics, made the following comments, "RCS is a progressive and important technology that is transforming the future of mobile communication. As a market leader in technology, Samsung continues to differentiate itself by providing our customers with the most advanced mobile communications software and solutions available."

The current plan is that Samsung will begin offering joyn Blackbird-based services on its flagship phones including the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S5 in Germany and Spain by the end of this year. Future plans include a roll out of the new features in France, Italy and the U.K. 




Edited by Maurice Nagle


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