{"id":324783,"date":"2019-10-25T09:25:15","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T07:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=324783"},"modified":"2019-10-25T09:26:57","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T07:26:57","slug":"us-carriers-are-killing-sms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/324783-us-carriers-are-killing-sms.html","title":{"rendered":"US carriers are killing SMS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The four largest mobile carriers in the United States &#8211; AT&amp;T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint &#8211; have issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/investors.sprint.com\/news-and-events\/press-releases\/press-release-details\/2019\/ATT-Sprint-T-Mobile-and-Verizon-Form-Joint-Venture-to-Transform-Messaging-Experience\/default.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>joint press release<\/strong><\/a> announcing the Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI), which will see these carriers replace SMS technology with RCS.<\/p>\n<p>As part of this initiative, the CCMI will develop a new RCS texting app for Android smartphones that are sold by these four carriers.<\/p>\n<p>The app will be compatible with the Universal Profile standard for RCS, and will support all traditional features of the technology.<\/p>\n<p>The CCMI is open to working with companies interested in RCS to ensure maximum compatibility &#8211; including the likes of Samsung and Google.<\/p>\n<p>Google product director Sanaz Ahari told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2019\/10\/24\/20931202\/us-carriers-rcs-cross-carrier-messaging-initiative-ccmi-att-tmobile-sprint-verizon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>The Verge<\/strong><\/a> that the company is committed to working on enhancing the RCS experience on its Android mobile operating system.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s great to see US carriers getting behind RCS in a meaningful way and we look forward to continuing to work with them to bring modern messaging to everyone on Android,&#8221; said Ahari.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">SMS in South Africa<\/h3>\n<p>The rise of WhatsApp in South Africa has seen it become the primary messaging platform for many South Africans, replacing SMS for these users.<\/p>\n<p>MTN told MyBroadband that it has experienced a decline in SMS usage of approximately 20% across its prepaid and contract customers.<\/p>\n<p>However, the company said SMS still comprises a significant portion of the company&#8217;s revenue, meaning that it is unlikely to make SMSes free in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Vodacom said that while its SMS services have previously suffered a decline, SMS quantities have stabilised recently.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/smartphones\/324761-motorola-working-on-flagship-smartphone-to-take-on-samsung-and-huawei.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">Motorola working on flagship smartphone to take on Samsung and Huawei<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The four largest mobile carriers in the United States issued a joint press release announcing the Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI), which will see these carriers replace SMS technology with RCS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341039,"featured_media":122974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[61543,203,2594],"class_list":["post-324783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-rcs","tag-sms","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324783"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341039"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324787,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324783\/revisions\/324787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}