Hello @SamuelD

When will RCS be introduced at Swisscom? Fall or rather winter 2018? I hope you are already testing it diligently.

Here are my 2 cents on the criticisms of encryption and iOS:

Encryption:

Of course, it’s a shame that there is no end-to-end encryption. But the topic is greatly overrated. As mentioned above, the data between device and provider is encrypted. Who among the users is disadvantaged by the lack of end-to-end encryption? If we’re honest, practically no one! You are less interesting to the state than you think. In addition, WhatsApp messages were not end-to-end encrypted for years and practically everyone still diligently sent messages back and forth. Well, it’s clear to me that people who value end-to-end encryption extremely, really extremely highly cannot be convinced. I’m just wondering whether a Facebook Konzern service is the right solution.

iOS:

Apple will support RCS for several reasons:

1. They do not have a relatively high market share in all countries.

2. Once RCS is established on practically all Android devices, the telcos will maintain the relatively expensive SMS system as a fall back system practically exclusively for Apple.

3. It’s not Apple vs. other smartphone manufacturers but Apple+Google+Microsoft vs. Facebook.

4. In the USA, SMS is used significantly more often than WhatsApp.

5. Apple never said they wouldn’t support RCS. If we’re honest, they’re not under any pressure to introduce RCS just yet. I guess late 2019 or early 2020, which in the smartphone world is ages.

6. Apple has dozens of other and better moats than iMessage and can still advertise the “advantage” that messages are end-to-end encrypted between Apple devices.

I’m sorry if I broke 1 million community rules with this post. I am a novice.

LG Rex

Hello Rextado, unfortunately we cannot currently provide any information about the potential introduction of RCS. We’ll let you know as soon as we know more. Kind regards, Nina

Speaking of WhatsApp and from Facebook.

Encryption. As pleasing as the WhatsApp encryption initiative is in principle, one should not forget that it is still a chat app from Facebook, which is now free again and has always been ad-free. The operators certainly have an interest in user data.

Specifically, WhatsApp reads the numbers of your contacts on the phone and automatically adds them to the WhatsApp contact list. In addition, the app must be granted extensive rights on the smartphone during installation.

The encryption that WhatsApp now uses is considered secure - it comes from Open Whisper Systems, the company that is also responsible for the chat app Signal, recommended by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Unlike Signal, WhatsApp is not open source software. This means: Not everyone can view the code and look for backdoors or cryptography errors. To a certain extent, you have to trust that WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook use encryption correctly and without exceptions and that there are no security gaps that can be used to circumvent it.

For secret services, metadata is often the more valuable data anyway: it can be used, for example, to uncover communication networks - and WhatsApp groups make it particularly easy to find out who is connected to whom.

All carriers in the world have the same problem, there are major investments in the networks (formerly bandwidth in Fixnet, today 5G), but at the same time less profit is made because prices fall (flat rate) and proprietary services are used the carriers earn nothing. It is understood that Swisscom is trying to offer services that move us customers away from the free services of Threema, WhatsApp etc. There are just a few errors in the whole thing. Firstly, these services do not offer end customers any additional benefits that would encourage them to switch. Secondly, such services will hardly be free; an attempt will be made to create a new cash cow like SMS and voice minutes were. If you don’t want to use the RCS, you can also deactivate it on your smartphone. The advantage is that there are no unwanted costs and in many cases the battery consumption also decreases.

@Chrisiboy

On the subject of “There are a few errors in the whole thing.”:

The biggest mistake in thinking lies with the stingy-is-horny consumers who want more and more performance for less and less money, but still demand more and more wages.

However, this calculation does not work in the long term, i.e. sooner or later the providers will have to increase prices again and save on performance, quality, service and investments and lay off people, which will then again be at the expense of the general public.

True, but it doesn’t just originate with consumers. The two largest landline carriers in Switzerland helped a lot. Let’s briefly remember that in the past the business model was to sell bandwidth for Internet access at high prices and at the same time to offer its customers the application. At that time, very good money was earned. In order to be able to meet the increasing demand, investments were made in new technologies and with them This could then be financed for new subscribers with good margins. At some point it became clear that as the availability of bandwidth increased and more network providers increased, the price had to fall, although the case should work as the number of customers increased because everyone should be getting more and more bandwidth. Unfortunately that didn’t work, at 20-40 Mbps all customers could watch their TV in HD and surf the Internet at the same time and that’s still enough for 98% of users today. The misjudgment is based on the fact that carriers have continued to invest in the network in order to achieve ever higher bandwidths, which in fact no one needs. Swisscom’s FTTH program is a good example of this. In 2010 it was said that every building in Switzerland would be connected to fiber optics, that the customer needed the bandwidth and would pay for it. But the fact is that 98% of all households use the offer with the lowest available bandwidth and only 1% of customers who have 1Gbps available via a fiber optic connection in their home actually use it.

It is absolutely clear to me that it is a difficult situation for carriers, but such unsuitable attempts such as establishing RSC do not help the providers because no customer will buy a service if they have been able to use an established “free service” for a long time. The future will look like this: you either provide the infrastructure or you have a good application that you can sell as an OTT service.

The topic is in all media. I very much hope that this will now become established and that all providers, and especially Apple, will implement this standard.

It’s about time there is an alternative to Facebook Konzern.

I’m curious to see whether Apple will communicate anything at WWDC.

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@mitsui1 wrote:

The topic is in all media. […]

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Which one, for example? The last news reports I found about this are almost a year old. So I actually have the impression that my hopes that this data protection disaster will fail miserably have just been completely fulfilled…

There are already various alternatives to Facebook products, but unfortunately these are not popular either. For me, the only option would be for the carriers to offer RCS completely free of charge and ad-free.

Here is an article from the Tagesanzeiger.

https://m.tagesanzeiger.ch/articles/5cba1ac7ab5c377bdd000001

Let’s wait and see if Apple introduces RCS this summer. As long as RCS is not implemented as standard in the messaging app (analogous to iMessage with fallback SMS) and then works on all devices (iPad, Mac), there is no chance anyway. I want to be able to chat on all of these devices and not have to download a new app again.

But there are rumors that this will happen:

Apple may build the SMS successor RCS into iMessage

[https://www.iphone-blog.ch/2019/01/09/apple-baut-den-sms-nachfollowers-rcs-moeglichlichen-in-imessage-ein/](https://www.iphone-blog .ch/2019/01/09/apple-builds-the-sms-successor-rcs-possibly-in-imessage-a/)

Apple will probably adapt/change the protocol so that it only works on iOS.

Otherwise Apple wouldn’t be Apple.

@SamuelD when asked “whether RCS encrypts.” should you write no.

The messages are not encrypted and pass through the network in plain text. Google and Samsung want to read along.

And until that’s fixed, RCS isn’t interesting.

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@marcus wrote:

Apple will probably adapt/change the protocol so that it only works on iOS.

Otherwise Apple wouldn’t be Apple.

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Personally, I believe (hope) that when Apple RCS is implemented, it will be open. There is already iMessage (including Business Chat), which only works in the Apple ecosystem, so it wouldn’t make sense to introduce something closed again. But as you say, with Apple you never know…

Here’s another exciting slide:

[ /comments/ac7z28/reminder_apple_is_in_discussions_to_support_rcs/)

Hello Marcus

I don’t know where you got this information from and what facts back it up.

RCS is always transmitted encrypted.

In addition, the operators are subject to telecommunications law (and other regulations), which strictly prohibit the evaluation and reading of data, as is the case with SMS, MMS and telephony. This is called data protection - and the big providers like WA, FB, etc. don’t want to know anything about it. The users have agreed without hesitation that they can simply process and pass on their data for anything.

RCS is safer.

Safer than what? End-to-end encryption is still missing today, right? The encrypted transmission does not affect the entire communication path, as I understand it.

RCS is encrypted on all sections. Erich explained it wonderfully. We are subject to high legal requirements, others are not. How does E2E encryption help you if the service is blocked in a country. Or your data will still be evaluated for marketing purposes. We don’t do that.

RCS is a good Telco standard that is becoming more and more established. Many customers in other countries currently do not even know that they use RCS. I am firmly convinced that a communication path that is interesting for everyone will develop.

Guido

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@erich_1 wrote:

[…] RCS is always transmitted encrypted.

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But that is only half the truth. On certain routes (as Guido wrote), transmission is encrypted, yes. But at the intermediate stations it is always made into plain text, and you can potentially read along everywhere. With each of the telecommunications providers involved.

For my communication I want end-to-end encryption, ie. The message is encoded on the sender’s device and decoded on the recipient’s device. Everything else is not worthy of the term “encryption”.

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In addition, the operators are subject to telecommunications law (and other regulations), which strictly prohibit the evaluation and reading of data, as is the case with SMS, MMS and telephony. This is called data protection - and the big providers like WA, FB, etc. don’t want to know anything about it. The users have agreed without hesitation that they can simply process and pass on their data for anything.

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The current law just stipulates that both metadata and the actual content of the communication upon request Authorities must be handed over immediately, and telecommunications providers are even obliged to “remove any encryption they have installed”. This is also currently being done. I understand something different by data protection.

The operators of WhatsApp, iMessage & Co. receive the metadata and use it (certainly questionable), but according to the consensus of various experts, it is not possible to read the actual communication content there.

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RCS is safer.

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Safer than what? Maybe a little bit safer than a postcard. More secure than WhatsApp and iMessage: definitely no.

If you want to use WA and feel secure (encryption - data protection) that is your free decision. It’s not about banning or banning WA. RCS is SMS 2.0 with a few more cool features.

Maybe you can answer these questions:

- How do you become a millionaire with a free service?

- What’s the problem if the authorities can prevent or detect crimes in such cases?