Business messaging emerging as new battleground for telcos

THE ENTERPRISE MESSAGING segment may emerge as the new battleground for a telecom tariff war with the increase in transition from traditional text messaging to Rich Communication Services (RCS) for better engagement with consumers.

- JATIN GROVER

Google-promoted RCS is an upgraded version of SMS that engages users with branded, verified messages. It competes with the WhatsApp business messaging services. Currently, Vodafone Idea and Jio have enabled RCS Business Messaging (RBM), allowing enterprises to send rich, interactive messages with branding, verified sender IDs and chatbot-like interactions through their networks.

Bharti Airtel is yet to launch RBM. But once it does, a tariff war is expected as operators will compete to increase their market share in the segment, industry executives told FE.

Simply put, enterprises which want to send RCS messages to consumers tap communications platform as a service (CPaaS) providers such as Dotgo, Route Mobile, Sinch and Infobip. These CPaaS players do all the technical integrations and meet compliance requirements for RCS, including sending messages to end-consumers via telcos such as Jio or Vodafone Idea currently. This means that Airtel subscribers do get RCS messages from brands, but the same terminates on Airtel's network via a Vi or a Jio network.