Deutsche Telekom deploys Joyn (RCSe)

Operator group Deutsche Telekom has become the latest firm to offer the GSMA’s Joyn messaging platform to its users. The operator has rolled out the service to customers in its native Germany. 

Joyn is the brand name for the GSMA-led rich communications service, hailed by some as the answer to the OTT threat faced by mobile network operators. The service supports a range of functions, including group chat, file transfers throughout a range of different file formats and live video sharing during voice calls.

Deutsche Telekom becomes the second operator in Germany to launch Joyn after Vodafone. According to the GSMA, Spanish operator group Telefónica will also launch Joyn in the market later this year, and the service will be available to over 80 per cent of all mobile customers in Germany.

“Joyn is particularly easy to use. Customers will no longer have to worry about “what’s the best way to reach him/her?”; they won’t have to remember what different services each of their contacts uses,” said Niek Jan van Damme, Deutsche Telekom board member.

The operator said that the service’s chat and file-transfer functions are available at no additional charge for customers on tariffs that include a data or SMS at a flat rate. “Joyn users with such plans can share large numbers of files without having the transmitted data be charged against the data-volume limits in their plans,” the operator said in a statement. “And the cap on file size is generous: 15 MB. Even live video sharing does not generate any additional costs for customers with a voice flat rate or voice minutes package.” 

The service will also be available to customers on prepaid plans until August 31, 2013, at no additional charge and without further constraints, the operator added. The operator group also stressed its commitment to data security and pointed out that its server facilities are based in Germany so the service conforms to stringent European data-protection regulations. 

“With Joyn—in contrast to the procedure with other messengers—a device’s address book always remains on the local device,” the operator added. “No copies of it are uploaded to globally distributed servers for open-ended storage. When Joyn is used via a public wifi network, initial portions of messages are not transmitted in encrypted form, but Deutsche Telekom plans to eliminate that limitation by summer 2013.”

The GSMA has also revealed that “in the near future”, the Joyn service will come preinstalled on new smartphones from Samsung, HTC, Sony, Nokia and LG. A beta version of Joyn is now available in the Google Play Store, for Android version 2.3 and higher, and will be available soon in Apple’s App Store for iOS, the association added.

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.telekom.joyn&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS50ZWxla29tLmpveW4iXQ..

Source: http://www.telecoms.com/117241/deutsche-telekom-joyns-in/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=deutsche-telekom-joyns-in

More info: http://gigaom.com/2013/03/04/deutsche-telekom-activates-joyn-for-richer-communications/ asdasdsa

SKT and one million causes causes noises (from Telecoms.com)

Almost twelve months after Vodafone Spain became the first mobile operator to officially launch Joyn, South Korea’s SK Telecom has announced a fairly impressive one million users for its Joyn.T service, just 50 days after it was launched in December 2012.

SKT is the first of the seven operators that have launched Joyn services in four countries in the past twelve months to have announced user numbers, though it has not stated what proportion of the one million Joyn.T subscribers are active users. The operator made the Joyn.T Android application available for download from its T Store, but mobile subscribers can also download it from Google Play, from where the application had between 10,000-50,000 downloads in the 30 days to February 19, 2012.

The announcement is timely for the GSM Association given that it comes the week before the industry body’s Mobile World Congress, where Rich Communications Suite (RCS), and Joyn in particular, will likely be a key focus.

The SKT numbers also give Joyn a much-needed boost, coming as it does within weeks of Deutsche Telekom being forced to issue a clarification about its delayed launch of Joyn services in Germany. DT said that an error in translation resulted in the reporting of an “indefinite delay” in the launch of Joyn in Germany, which was originally scheduled for December 2012, when in fact the operator had simply declined to state a new launch date. Informa understands that DT is currently conducting a sizeable user trial of the live service on its network, and that a launch is imminent.

According to SKT, the GSMA said that the success of its Joyn.T launch will likely accelerate the commercialization of Joyn globally. Joyn services are already available from mobile operators in Spain (Vodafone, Telefonica and Orange), Germany (Vodafone) and the US (MetroPCS), as well as from SKT rivals LG Uplus and KT Freetel.

The GSMA stated at Informa’s Rich Communications event in Berlin in November that 30 operators in 18 countries had committed to launching Joyn services, not all of which were opcos of operators that have already launched services. However, by Informa’s own reckoning, just ten operators (and their subsidiaries) are planning launches on 24 networks in an additional 16 countries, not including Spain, Germany, the US and South Korea, where services have already launched.

Most recently, it’s been reported that Singapore’s Starhub is working with partner network Vodafone on a Joyn launch, scheduled for 2H13. It is likely that Starhub’s Joyn service will make use of Vodafone’s hosted RCS capability, with Vodafone recently stating that it is already helping seven partner and competitor networks deploy RCS-based services, with another seven networks and a mobile operator with a group of 13 networks in the pipeline.

But it remains to be seen whether those mobile operators who are doubtful about RCS services will be sufficiently convinced by the positive subscriber response to SKT’s launch of Joyn.T, especially since SKT’s success appears to be an isolated case. None of the other mobile operators that have launched Joyn services have disclosed user numbers, and Google Play data would tend to suggest that mobile subscribers have not rushed to download their respective Joyn applications. For example, both the Joyn by Vodafone and the Joyn by MetroPCS Android applications had between 100,000-500,000 downloads in the 30 days to February 19. That is an improvement since January 25, however, when the respective applications had between 50,000-100,000 downloads and between 10,000-50,000 downloads.

Meanwhile, the uptake of Joyn.T is particularly notable given that South Korea is also home to KakaoTalk, one of the first over-the-top messaging applications, which launched in March 2010 and which at last count had 75 million downloads. Indeed, it was the uptake of KakaoTalk (among others) that led to the demise of SKT’s Mobile Messenger service, which was launched in August 2006, and which then developed into an interoperable “pre-RCS” service in March 2009, alongside KT Freetel’s Show Messenger and LG Telecom’s Oz Messenger.

SKT initially offered Mobile Messenger for free, and the number of subscribers to the service grew from 216,000 in May 2009 to 1.2 million by June 2010, while monthly traffic increased from 13.5 million messages to 243 million messages during the same period. However, once SKT started charging for Mobile Messenger, user numbers and traffic fell dramatically, as subscribers migrated to the ‘free’ applications provided by KakaoTalk and others.

It is possible that a proportion of KakaoTalk users may switch back to Joyn.T. But KakaoTalk has in the meantime created additional revenue-generating consumer-facing services, such as branded emoticons (stickers) and games, and has also launched a digital publishing platform targeted at enabling brands and content providers to provide services and content to KakaoTalk users. In so doing, KakaoTalk has taken steps to differentiate itself from competitive plays (such as Joyn.T) in a bid to ensure it remains a relevant and preferred service for its users, and it is generating revenues from these services.

By contrast, it appears that SKT has accepted that initially, at least, Joyn.T will not be a directly revenue-generating service, and the operator has even extended the availability of Joyn.T as an unlimited, “free-for-life” service to smartphone users on flat-rate data plans; previously Joyn.T had been available for free to SKT’s 3G All-in-One and LTE  subscribers on flat-rate data plans. Data usage associated with Joyn.T messaging will also be free, including messages sent from Joyn.T devices to non-Joyn.T devices (smart-phones and feature-phones), which will be delivered as SMSes.

The operator is also offering its Joyn.T customers the ability to exchange content, sticker and emoticons via the rich messaging capability, but it has not disclosed whether these will be additional revenue-generating services.

SKT is looking ahead, however, and plans to link Joyn.T to its HD Voice VolTE service, and to open up its Joyn.T APIs to small-to-medium enterprises. The latter strategy should help SKT to generate additional revenues, as SMEs tap into the operator’s infrastructure in order to be able to offer Joyn.T-based applications and services such as games, social networking and mobile commerce.
At present, Joyn.T appears to be more of a customer retention strategy for SKT. Certainly, the operator is playing to its strengths in terms of its existing billing relationships with its mobile subscribers, and consequently its ability to be able to bundle access to Joyn.T with its mobile data plans.

But it remains to be seen whether offering Joyn.T for free is going to be enough to tempt SKT subscribers away from KakaoTalk, which has in the intervening years developed its offering beyond simply ‘free’ messaging, made its application available on multiple device OSes (Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Bada, WindowsPhone), and built up a substantial user base.

Source: http://www.telecoms.com/106422/one-million-users-for-skt-joyn-but-is-%E2%80%98free%E2%80%99-enough-to-tempt-subs-away-from-kakaotalk/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=one-million-users-for-skt-joyn-but-is-%25e2%2580%2598free%25e2%2580%2599-enough-to-tempt-subs-away-from-kakaotalk

SK Telecom's Joyn service reaches 1million users

Operator enables Joyn subscribers to send instant messages to feature phone owners.

SK Telecom claimed on Monday that its joyn.T service has become the first RCS offering to surpass the 1 million subscriber mark.

The operator launched Joyn – the consumer-facing brand of the GSMA's Rich Communication Suite (RCS) – under the joyn.T brand in late December 2012. Since then it has tweaked the service so that data fees incurred from sending and receiving instant messages are not deducted from an end user's data allowance – a similar strategy that has been adopted by Joyn operators in Europe.

In addition, SK Telecom has also enabled subscribers to send Joyn messages to phones that do not have Joyn installed, which includes feature phones that are not compatible with the service. Any instant messages sent to a non-Joyn phone appear in the recipient's SMS inbox.

"SK Telecom aims to integrate all means of mobile communication into joyn.T to make it the most attractive choice for customers seeking an accurate and enriched communication service," said Wi Eui-Seok, EVP and head of product planning at SK Telecom, in a statement.

It will start by integrating joyn.T with its high-definition (HD) voice over LTE (VoLTE) service, which will become a standard feature on all phones sold by SK Telecom from March.
SK Telecom said it will also make its joyn.T APIs available to third parties in a bid to foster an ecosystem of entertainment, m-commerce and ICT services around its RCS offer.

Related:

• SK Telecom rolls out Joyn:http://telecomsrev.blogspot.pt/2013/01/rcs-e-joyn-sk-telecom-rolls-out-joyn.html
• RCS-e Joyn: Deployment world map:http://telecomsrev.blogspot.pt/2013/01/rcs-e-joyn-deployment-world-map.html  
• Korea "joyns" the club (theartofmessaging blog): http://theartofmessaging.com/2013/01/17/korea-joyns-the-club/

Source: http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=479508

MetroPCS says joyn launch proceeding smoothly despite DT's troubles

MetroPCS said its deployment of Rich Communication Services under the GSMA's joyn brand is humming along just fine. The comments are notable considering the technical difficulties Deutsche Telekom is experiencing in Germany that have forced the carrier to indefinitely delay launching joyn there.

MetroPCS, the only U.S. carrier so far to have launched joyn, said all of its LTE handsets--including the Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy Admire 4G, ZTE Avid and LG Spirit--now support joyn via a downloadable client available in Google's Play storefront.
MetroPCS spokesman Drew Crowell told FierceWireless that the company's plans for joyn remain unchanged, and that the carrier hopes to sell phones with joyn built in by the middle of this year. "We are working with handset OEMs to build-in joyn as a fully integrated feature, without the need for a download," he said.

Deutsche Telekom said earlier this week is indefinitely delaying the commercial launch of joyn in Germany after admitting that implementing the technology is taking much longer than originally expected. Incorporating joyn software into DT's handset portfolio is a lengthy process that requires thorough testing, DT spokesman Dirk Turning told Wirtschafts Woche. "Our goal is, of course, to move as quickly as possible to bring joyn to market," he said.

MetroPCS first launched joyn in late October. "As with any new service or feature rollout, there were challenges that needed to be addressed but we are proud to have been the first LTE operator to successfully launch RCS v. 5.0," Crowell said.
Crowell declined to provide usage statistics on MetroPCS' joyn users. MetroPCS has said the technology will allow users with compatible handsets to:

• See when other users are available;
• Conduct threaded text conversations;
• Share content via one click from an address book;
• Share video, images and files while on a call;
• And conduct voice and video calls over Wi-Fi networks.

MetroPCS has said it launched joyn to enhance its customers' mobile experience and not necessarily to protect against losing messaging or data revenues--MetroPCS is not charging extra for the service. However, many European carriers have embraced joyn in order to stem losses to over-the-top messaging services like WhatsApp, Apple's iMessage and Facebook's Messenger.
Late last year in Spain Telefónica's Movistar, Orange Spain and Vodafone Spain jointly launched joyn service.
As operators rally around joyn, over-the-top providers continue to expand. For example, Facebook recently updated its Messenger app for iOS to support voice calling between Facebook users.

 

Source: 

• http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/metropcs-says-joyn-launch-proceeding-smoothly-despite-dts-troubles/2013-01-31 

RCS-e Joyn: Deployment World Map

The blogger issues a question that another engineers are thinking:

Where is Joyn really deployed and in what way can I benchmark approaches and business models ?

What is Joyn? Joyn is an end user communication tool with instant messaging, video calling, file transfer and fully integrated in the device and network subscription.

Current live network deployed Joyn (client application):

• US: metroPCS
• Spain: Movistar (Telefonica), Vodafone and Orange
• Germany: Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile)
• Mexico: Telcel (America Móvil)
• South Korea: SK Telecom, KT and LG U+

Also, Zain(with mobile operations across eight markets in the Middle East and North Africa) is launching pilot Rich Communications Services (RCS) in its home market of Kuwait too.

Planned deployment at: AT&T, Bell Mobility, Bharti Airtel, KPN, KT, LGU+, Orascom Telecom, Rogers Communications, SFR, Telecom Italia, TeliaSonera, Telus and Verizon.

Also in the this matter, accreditation by GSMA is an ongoing process that can be reviewed at http://www.gsma.com/rcs/interoperability-testing/accreditation/. The metrics are defined but not all the client applications are accredited.

Promotional Video - Vodafone Joyn: http://www.youtube.com/joyn@vdf
Resources - GSMA Joyn: http://www.gsma.com/rcs/resources 

Last update@2013-03-11

Sources:

• http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/joyn-sms-version-20-will-it-help-carriers-stem-ott-tide/2012-03-29
• http://www.gsma.com/rcs/ 
• http://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/story/deutsche-telekom-indefinitely-delays-joyn-launch-date-admits-technical-issu/2013-01-30  
• http://www.telcel.com/apps/web/
• http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2013/03/07/zain-first-in-middle-east-to-join-joyn/

RCS-e Joyn: SK Telecom rolls out Joyn

South Korean operator expects subscribers to pay to use some features once offer period expires at end of May.

 

SK Telecom has become the latest operator to launch Joyn and one of the first that plans to charge customers to use some of its features. The operator announced last week that the service, which it is calling joyn.T, will be free to use for those who take out one of its flat-rate 3G or LTE contracts between now and the end of May.

Customers who sign up after then will have to pay certain fees according to their price plan.

For example, one of Joyn's marquee features, video-sharing, will cost 0.33 Korean won per second on a flat-rate tariff and 0.6 won on a usage-based tariff, meaning five minutes of video-sharing will cost 99 won ($0.9), or 180 won ($0.17) depending on the type of contract. Messages will be charged at 20 won ($0.01) per message, while file-sharing will be accounted for on the customer's data allowance.
These fees may well be very low; nevertheless, SK Telecom's strategy is markedly different from other operators that have launched Joyn, such as Telefonica in Spain and Deutsche Telekom in Germany, which offer it at no extra charge in a bid to tempt their customers away from alternative over-the-top (OTT) services.

Going forward, SK Telecom plans to add new, albeit unspecified features to joyn.T, which will be launched under the name joyn.T 2.0 later in 2013. The company said it will also launch a joyn.T client for PCs this year. "We plan to add more features to shape joyn.T into an attractive communication channel that can be enjoyed by customers irrespective of their carrier or device," said Wi Eui-Seok, SVP and head of product planning at SK Telecom.

SK Telecom's deployment of Joyn – the consumer-facing brand of the GSMA's Rich Communication Suite (RCS) – comes nearly six months after it rolled out high-definition voice over LTE (VoLTE). At the time, SK Telecom talked up the potential of linking the two services.

Source: http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=478562