Mobile operators of Spain have launched Joyn for Android: is the industry trying to return Whatsapp and Viber users?

Clouds over Whatsapp , Viber , iMessage and their counterparts are beginning to thicken?

Union of the 3 largest mobile operators in Spain launched the Joyn service.

Under this brand, the global program " Rich Communications Services " is promoted. Only here in smartphones of socially active subscribers have long and firmly taken root application leaders like Whatsapp and Viber, and as their distribution grows, subscribers around the world spend less and less money on SMS and MMS. Since 2013, Joyn will be massively embedded in the phones, but has the platform that they have been carrying for so long been late?



The constantly growing popularity of Whatsapp worldwide is estimated at 100 ... 200 million users (up to 500M according to Google Play), and its Asian counterpart, WeChat, at 200 million . It is possible that in future services like Whatsapp and Viber will be blocked?

Joyn

Finally, he came: the savior of the mobile industry, Joyn, in professional circles known as “Rich Communications Services”, or abbreviated as “RCS”. In February of this year, at Mobile World Congress, the GSMA industry regulator said that all major mobile operators will implement it, and now - the whole big three of Spain - Movistar (Telefonica), Orange and Vodafone - have begun to offer it to their customers.

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Joyn allows users to exchange instant messages, and “enrich” voice calls, exchanging video and other files right during a call. This is an independent service that is not tied to an operator, so in this respect it is only necessary for your operator to support it, regardless of the country. And Spain has become the first country in the world where all major operators have implemented it simultaneously.



In other countries, the service is already available in Vodafone (Germany), as well as in Deutsche Telekom, starting in December, and also in the USA in MetroPCS.



The GSMA says that VoIP and IP video calls will also be implemented in the future. Here are some promotional words from Michael O'Hara, director of marketing for GSMa:

“This is the first introduction of a new technology that obviously required a lot of effort and strong leadership in aligning the actions of the ecosystem of manufacturers, developers, integrators and operators. Spain’s three operators have become pioneers, and users around the world will benefit from these efforts. ”

Not really understand what was going on here? Watch a glossy video that demonstrates how to share files in Joyn:







All these features are implemented deeply at the level of network infrastructure, as well as Voice over LTE. Now, to use it, a special application for Android is required, but soon (in early 2013) devices with built-in Joyn should appear. As the service works over IP, of course, it should work via Wi-Fi.



Mentioned smartphones with built-in Joyn will have to undergo thorough compatibility tests, and then you will recognize them by the bright yellow logo of Joyn, which will appear when you turn on the phone. The same logo will be displayed next to the name of the contacts in the address book.

What for?

If you still do not understand, this is perhaps the most impressive attempt by mobile operators in the industry to do something together. Why? Because operators want to stay in demand.







The question is, maybe they are already late?



Over the past 2 years, large operators have released a variety of applications that are doomed to failure - Bobsled from T-Mobile (USA), Tu Me from Telefonica and, onim of the latter, Libon from Orange. Each of these applications allowed to make free calls and exchange messages, and subscribers of any network could install them.



In each of these cases, the same goal was pursued: so that users stop thinking about WhatsApp and start thinking about their operator again. Mobile operators woke up late, realizing that users are increasingly thinking of them as the provider of unlimited mobile Internet , and that this gives them goosebumps . Because there is nothing more to stand out.



Now, all representatives of the industry are trying to unite. This fact alone shows despair - after all, some of them had already tried to do something similar .



The key problem is that users already have such services. Users have already trusted WhatsApp, Viber and Skype. Operators are now counting on Joyn to become so ubiquitous that those that the most inert mass of users will switch to it all at once, and it will become a new standard both in terms of user base and support out of the box.



Do they believe it themselves? Maybe. If you look at the mentioned Tu Me, Bobsled and Libon and related extras, you can see that the operators do not have much faith that Joyn will “take off”.



This does not mean that Joyn will not be successful. It is being introduced by the industry monsters, and if they manage to maintain the unity of the “friends against” union, the blow will be strong. At the worst (for them) scenarios, we see the last gasp.



Source: GigaOM: Spain's carriers unite on this? (David Meyer)

Photo: Getty Images

Afterword

For those who think that mobile messengers are nonsense, you should pay attention to such facts in order to understand the volume of the SMS market:

• On December 31, Russian Beeline subscribers sent more than 176 million SMS , which, even at a price of 1 sms, 1 ruble (say), is approximately $ 6 million (per day);
• For 10 years, almost 10.5 billion SMS have been sent to the Beeline network ;
• 2.7 billion SMS are sent daily to China;
• Europe loses SMS: despite the success of previous years, the SMS market in Europe is losing revenue and users ;
• The interesting article " Whatsapp first ate the Netherlands ... " tells how the instant popularity of Whatsapp in the country (caused by the very high SMS price) for 2 years led to a significant drop in the shares of the mobile operator KPN, and massive layoffs.

In Russia, perhaps, the only example of a similar attempt is the Multiphone from Megaphone. It was launched a few years ago and has not been promoted since. The multi-phone is actually much wider than trying to simply make an alternative to mobile IM. It allows you to receive calls to your MegaFon mobile number via SIP, and make outgoing calls via SIP at more humane long-distance and international rates than from a SIM card (although recently services like Youmagic offer much more attractive rates , for some directions 5 times lower than in the Multifone ).



Multifon is an open service that can be used either through (not very convenient and heavy) official Multifon client, or through any other favorite SIP client for a computer or mobile, as well as from hardware SIP phones. Megaphone is not at all opposed to users connecting the Multifon as a trunk to an IP PBX (virtual PBX), and flexibly managing calls as they wish (for example, they redirect incoming numbers to any other numbers, mobile numbers in other countries — in some cases helps to save on roaming).



Therefore, we can assume that the grateful subscribers of Megaphone use it for voice calls, and that, perhaps, it was created as a competitor to Skype, and not Whatsapp. Why such a good (and successful!) Service does not develop is not clear.



Earlier there were reports that VimpelCom Mobile Operator intends to create its own program for IP-telephony, which can replace Skype in terms of functionality , but it seems that the matter has not advanced.



Isn't such a lull a sign that our big three are preparing to introduce Joyn?

Whatsapp, Viber, iMessage and their analogues can be blocked?

An even more interesting question is if users of Whatsapp, Viber, iMessage and the like do not want to switch to Joyn, does this service threaten to block , for example, to “speed up the promotion of the service” or “to protect the interests of subscribers”?



After all, the practice of recent years shows that corporations are not very interested in the opinions of users, and prefer to unilaterally block the services of competitors or make "an offer that cannot be refused."



upd: It turns out that such measures are already being considered, according to CNews :

One of the problems that mobile operators have to solve is the introduction of voice services on 4G networks and the protection of their revenues from basic services. According to estimates by Informa Telecom & Media, the decline in revenues of cellular operators from the use of third-party IP services (OTT) by their subscribers, such as Skype, will reach 3.9 and 1.6% for Western and Eastern Europe in 2012, respectively. Ovum estimated losses from OTT messaging services at $ 13.9 billion, or 9% of total messaging revenue in 2011.



The response of mobile operators lies in four main planes:

• blocking and banning OTT services;
• reducing the attractiveness of OTT-services due to their pricing;
• joint projects in the field of mobile IP communications (for example, Joyn's European project within the framework of the concept of Rich Communication Services, RCS);
• independent implementation of OTT services.

Interestingly, in this case, Blackberry Messenger is likely to receive additional benefits in the battle of ecosystems .



What do you think?