On the anniversary of 5G license issuance, China’s 5G network construction has expanded rapidly, and more than 250 thousand 5G NRs have been built until now. The steady development of 5G network construction also accelerates the exploration and innovation of 5G-based applications. At the recent GSMA Thrive 5G message forum, Tu Jiashun, Chief NFV/SDN Scientist of ZTE, delivered a speech entitled “Building a More Reliable and Open Message Platform for the 5G Era”, sharing some views and best practices from ZTE on the subject of 5G Message with global audience.
At present, a series of problems of traditional SMS and OTT instant message providers, are exposed, such as SMS only for TXT, OTT for closed ecosystem. 5G features high rate, low latency, and large capacity, and can extend more application scenarios. The 5G industry will usher in new opportunities for great development. As mentioned in the 5G Message White Paper, global operators have reached a broad consensus that traditional SMS needs to be upgraded to the rich media message service, that is, the 5G message service.
As a world-leading message solution provider, ZTE has been working in the message field for many years, with rich technological accumulation. ZTE is also committed to research and innovation in the 5G message field, and actively promotes the establishment of a new message service ecosystem with Information as a Platform.
5G Message: Rich Media Service Platform
The operator’s traditional short message service cannot meet various user requirements due to its single form and lack of interaction. When the 5G era comes, 5G message reflects the generation gap between RCS and traditional message services. 5G message is not only the upgrade of traditional SMS, but also new services such as multimedia message, commercial message, intelligent message, interactive service, and security anti-counterfeiting. It provides both 2C applications and 2B applications, so it has huge potential.
5G message is widely used, and can effectively integrates text, image, audio, video, location and other information to upgrade a single SMS to a rich media message + service platform.“For new android users, the most intuitive feeling of 5G message is that they do not need to install and login any APP, but can acquire information and enjoy service easily. ” said Tu Jiashun.
In addition to the advantages of personal user experience, 5G message can also be used for government, public service, bank, education, and personal entertainment. In these fields, 5G message can be used as an entrance to multimedia contents and information services.
As mentioned in Tu Jiashun’s speech, as early as 2015, ZTE worked together with China Mobile to build the world’s largest multimedia message platform, and has accumulated a lot of experience in commercial deployment with more than 100 million users. In May 2020, ZTE assisted China Mobile in making through the 5G message first call, achieving the integration and inter-working of new multimedia messages and traditional messages.
Four Advantages to Build a New Message Platform for Operators
5G message enables new short messages featuring rich media, Web basing, and intelligence. The outstanding features and advantages of 5G message give great imagination space, and its market prospect is also widely favored.
Generally, 5G message can be used in two scenarios: message interaction between individual users, and message interaction between enterprise users and individual users. For the former case, 5G message supports point-to-point messages, bulk messaging, group chat, and multimedia messages of voice, picture, and video. In the latter case, 5G message provides message interaction interfaces between enterprises and individual users, and adds interaction capability on the basis of image and video to facilitate enterprises in outputting personalized services to users.
ZTE believes that 5G message has four advantages to help operators build new message platforms:
First, it has high credibility. Both the customer end and business end need real-name authentication for 5G messages. The message platform with real-name and SIM card authentication is more reliable.
Second, as the operator’s new message platform in the 5G era, 5G message is an ultra-lightweight application based on the native message entrance of Android terminals, with 100% reachable message and controllable security. Message as a Service enables boot-and-use, on-demand service, and use-and-go.
Third, 5G message will build a fair traffic platform. This solution breaks the private domain restriction of the OTT “family package” and builds a fair and open information service platform to empower thousands of start up companies.
Fourth, 5G message is a converged messaging system upgrading from traditional SMS. It has already access to all mobile terminals. For China Mobile, it covers more than 900 million users and can reach 100% of them. 5G message can help bridge the digital divide in the dual social structure and become a universal information infrastructure.
Tu said that the vision of 5G message is to empower thousands of startups and APPs, build an open ecosystem, and actively provide public services and assume social responsibilities while achieving commercial value.
5G Message Gives More Value to Emergency Communications
In the traditional emergency system design, faxes, short messages, and calls are the three most reliable emergency communication modes. However, the traditional emergency system even OTT platform cannot meet the public security requirements of the modern society. 5G message has broad prospects for improving the emergency communication assurance and dispatching system in the public service field due to its rich contents and all-round reach-ability.
5G message with texts and pictures is sent to users for scientific publicity and education concerning disaster reduction. In case of an emergency, the government can send early warning messages to users in time through the 5G message platform. In the future, through the development of platform functions, users can also use one-click call rescue through the 5G message platform to transfer the current location information to the platform. The platform arranges professional rescue engineers to provide efficient rescue.
Tu Jiashun said that ZTE and China Mobile Zhejiang Branch had deployed the public welfare emergency bulk messaging application. Together with the Zhejiang Emergency Management Office (including the subordinate meteorological station and seismological bureau), ZTE built a multimedia disaster prediction system based on the new 5G message platform to provide the public with the emergency early warning system and science publicity. Before a disaster occurs, it can remind users to make preparations to prevent the disaster effectively in advance.
Creating a New Ecosystem for 5G Message
ZTE is committed to empowering new service capabilities such as new calls, new messages, new conferences, new positioning, new security, and new contacts, to build a new ecosystem of 5G message.
For the new 5G message, real-name authentication networks and native terminals are the cornerstone of trusted communications. A neutral network ensures open and fair access. In the future, 5G message will also bear more social responsibilities in the public domain. Its advantages such as credibility, fairness, and openness will inject vitality into traditional SMS which is now in a contracted state.
ZTE believes that the healthy development of 5G message requires a complete ecological chain that includes operators, platform vendors, terminal vendors, innovative service providers, and industry customers. To achieve win-win value, each industry partner should give full play to their combined strengths.
“ZTE will also be committed to providing 5G message technologies and building an open 5G message platform to create good conditions for the development of the entire industry, and help operators build a more reliable and open message platform in the 5G era, to create a new ecological environment for 5G message.”Tu Jiashun said.
