4 ms·
RCS isn’t encrypted though, whereas WhatsApp is. I can use WhatsApp with anyone in the world, it’s compatible with basically any carrier network in any country
by ubercow13 7y ago
RCS isn’t encrypted though, whereas WhatsApp is. I can use WhatsApp with anyone in the world, it’s compatible with basically any carrier network in any country and any phone. It’s not clear what benefit you’re saying RCS will have over it?
- frosted-flakes 7y agoYou can't use WhatsApp with people who don't have WhatsApp. Which is the entire point of having a Standard Messaging Service. But SMS is very basic and limited in functionality, which is where RCS comes in. I still use SMS almost exclusively for the simple reason that it is standard—except for group messages, for which I use Signal.
- ubercow13 7y agoDespite being a standard, you can’t really use SMS with people outside your country because it is astronomically expensive
- reaperducer 7y agoDepends on your country and your plan. I can only speak as an American, but sending an SMS to Europe costs 20¢ on my plan. Hardly astronomical, especially considering that when SMS was new, it cost 50¢-$1.00 per message.
- why-oh-why 7y agoYou don’t think 20¢ is astronomical? A person does not simply send one message. A teenager will send a hundred micro messages as day as short as “lol” I wouldn’t dream of communicating the same way if messages weren’t “free” (i.e. part of your internet fee) I say this as someone with “most of my friends” living in other countries at any given time.
- esotericn 7y agoIn the UK SMS was about 5p prepaid. Even that was expensive. It's ~100 bytes.
- ubercow13 7y agoI dread to think what my monthly bill would be if all messages I sent using every internet connected chat service cost 20 cents. I might have sent 100 short messages just to my mother this month. That would be $20 just for talking to one person. Last time I had a UK phone contract I was paying £13 for unlimited data. Yes, 20 cents is astronomical.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 7y agoSide note, The S in SMS stands for Short, not Standard.
- Freak_NL 7y ago> WhatsApp […] and any phone. Nope. WhatsApp requires an Android, IOS, or Windows smartphone. WhatsApp is not a protocol you can freely implement, its a piece of proprietary software you have to install. No third-party clients.
- ubercow13 7y agoIs it not the case that my carrier has to implement RCS? I cannot use a third party RCS client. I am either dependent on Facebook or my carrier to do it for me in each case. From another post in this thread it sounds like even if your carrier supports RCS, they might intentionally only do so on some phones. How is that freedom?
- Freak_NL 7y agoIt isn't. Neither provide the user with the freedoms we might expect by now for something as common as text messaging.
- thekyle 7y agoWhy wouldn't you be able to use a 3rd part RCS client. There are loads of 3rd party SMS clients and I'm sure many of them would also work fine with RCS. Your carrier just provides you access to the SMS/RCS network, they have no control what software you use to access it.
- remir 7y agoIt's also available on KaiOS.
- dwheeler 7y agoAgreed. SMS is not encrypted end to end. We don't need another protocol like RCS that is not end to end encrypted... that is the basic minimum today.