2 MIN READ | Industry

Ensuring and assuring the success of RCS deployments and interoperability requires proven test capabilities - part 2

Erika Collins
Dec. 16 2016
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Ensuring and assuring the success of RCS deployments and interoperability requires proven test capabilities - part 2An optimized solution for ensuring compatibility and interoperability.

As we noted last time, achieving interoperability for RCS services and solutions is a key requirement, made more pressing by the rapid adoption of the service. With more than 100 million users already, it's essential to maintain interoperability and to continue to enable service compatibility, not only within an operator's network but also between different networks. That's why we have taken the initiative by playing a key role in efforts to provide standardized compliance tests.

TEMS' leadership, built through participation in the RCS Interoperability and Testing Group, and our proven performance, based on more than 3 years of active involvement in live RCS deployments, has helped operators and vendors alike achieve success with their RCS rollouts. We keep track of each iteration, ensuring that TEMS Monitor Master offers compatibility with key RCS variants, such as Crane and Blackbird. In addition to a rich set of functional testing, it enables automated testing for a broad suite of accredited cases, covering structured IOT (interoperability and testing), QC (quality check) and UX (user experience), allowing rapid service certification to be performed.

This is of great importance. Our implementations, validated in real conditions, with multiple vendors, multiple clients and multiple networks, give our customers the ability to perform conformance testing on each successive generation that is released, as well as the knowledge that we'll keep track of new versions and updates to ensure future compatibility.

Of course, this dramatic growth in the penetration of RCS also raises other challenges. As more operators deploy the service, interoperability between them becomes more pressing. This requires close co-operation between all stakeholders — the operators concerned, the different vendors, and handset manufacturers, for example. At TEMS, we have played a pivotal role in helping achieve interoperability between different operators, globally and within the same country. This has led to some interesting collaborative experiences.

Some of our customers have taken the step to expose the capabilities of their TEMS Monitor Master solution to their partners, so that they can share results and findings with peers and accelerate interoperability. This knowledge pooling can be critical, as it assists all parties concerned to secure their common goal and helps accelerate deployment. Already, we have seen this collaborative approach yield significant results, as all operators in a particular country achieve the interoperability they need to further stimulate market uptake and increase the community of active RCS users.

In conclusion, these are exciting times for RCS, with momentum boosted, not only by operators but also thanks to the efforts of Google and Samsung. It's been a long journey for RCS but at long last we are seeing the forecast penetration starting to be realized. If you are embarking on your RCS deployment, the proven capabilities of TEMS Monitor Master, combined with our expertise and leadership, will enable you to make it a success by ensuring compatibility and interoperability between systems, devices and networks.

Contact us to discuss how we can help with your RCS testing needs.

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