What is the difference between SMS and RCS?

 What is the difference between SMS and RCS?

. We are using the message box on the phone to reply to the message or to send a message to someone. Almost all phones have SMS (Short Message Service) facility.

However, some smartphones that have come into the market recently have the facility of sending messages through RCS (Rich Communication Service).

So what is SMS and what is RCS? What is the difference between them? Today we are discussing about these issues.

What is SMS?

MSS is the short form of Short Message Service. Translated into Nepali, it means short message service. As the name suggests, it is a medium or protocol that is used to send or receive short messages. In this case, messages are exchanged through the SIM card used in the mobile phone. And, the balance in the SIM or the SMS package is consumed. It is not necessary to have a data plan (MB) for this. However, there must be a tower (network) in SIM.

If there is a place where the network is not available on the phone, the message may not be sent. However, in almost all cases it is possible to send short messages. If it costs money to send a message, you don't have to pay any fees to receive it.

When mobile phones were developing, SMS service was started as an alternative to voice calls. Nowadays, with the advent of many platforms and social networks that can be used to send messages through the Internet, the SMS service feels outdated.

Only word based messages can be sent through SMS. Words should not exceed 160 characters. (For example, the word Tekpana has seven characters.) If you put a full stop, a question mark, a dot or any symbol, that character is counted.

Once a message is sent via SMS, the size of the message cannot be increased beyond 160 characters. However, depending on the capacity of some phones, the word limit in MSS may be more. However, there is no facility to send a long paragraph.

In this way, people were having problems as they could only send messages with limited words. Especially when sending long words, it was necessary to send separate messages several times. As a result, the balance on the SIM was also consumed more.

This problem rarely occurs in modern smartphones. But this is a big problem in normal bar phones. It is not possible to send media through SMS. Therefore, sending a photo, video, audio or gif file through SMS is not even possible.

In the early days, the SMS service was still working because the needs of people were not so much. However, at the present time this is seen as a very big disadvantage of SMS. So SMS started to be used only for sending precise and short text.

What is RCS?

This is not to say that MMS could not compete with modern instant messaging apps. Now we have come to a situation where we have started to feel less features of SMS.

RCS i.e. Rich Communication Service is a modern and sophisticated version of SMS and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). Through which media files, text or other format files can be sent.

RCS is very different from traditional SMS system. It also has a word limit more than SMS. Files like photos, videos, gifs can be sent through RCS. Not only that, RCS is also used to open a location or group chat. Also, all the information about the message sent, whether the person who sent the message received the message or who viewed it is available in the RCS protocol.

These features are available because the RCS protocol uses data from the Internet rather than the telephony network.

While SMS is a feature available in all devices, RCS is a feature available only in modern smartphones. In this way, there is no need to sign up for instant messaging apps (Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber) to use the RCS feature.

To use the RCS protocol, a phone that supports this feature is required. Even if the phone is not connected to the Internet, the RCS feature is limited to name only. The messages you send will go as SMS.

RCS is more useful than SMS in every field. However, RCS may not be available on all phones. Similarly, when there is no internet, it is not possible to send messages using RCS protocol. On the other hand, RCS runs on all types of phones, from normal barphones to Android and iPhone.

Even iPhone does not support RCS in all cases. If you try to send a message from an iPhone to an iPhone, then only the iPhone's RCS protocol works. RCS messages cannot be sent from iPhone to Android or Barphone.

What are the benefits of using RCS instead of SMS?

The benefits of RCS message protocol have already been mentioned above. The best feature is that RCS provides instant messaging like experience. Another feature of this is that there is no hassle of signing up.

Apart from that, being able to share files such as photos and videos as well as location is another positive aspect of it.

For those doing marketing through messages, earlier MMS was preferred but now RCS is preferred. Sending an attractive poster through RCS will have a good impact on the target audience.

Similarly, having end-to-end encryption message facility is another advantage of RCS protocol. However, not all phones may have this feature. Most mid-range and premium phones have this feature.

Although data is required to use RCS Available for free to users. To use SMS, the balance on the SIM is consumed. SMS is comparatively more expensive.

Who can use RCS?

First of all, the mobile service provider you are using must support the RCS feature. Similarly, the smartphone you are using should also support RCS. Nepal Telecom and Ncell Asiata, two major mobile service providers of Nepal, support RCS protocol.

This feature may not be available on all smartphones. However, this feature is available in mid-range and premium phones of models like iPhone, Xiaomi, Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, Realme, Redmi, which are widely used in Nepal.

This feature is available in the default messaging app available on some Android phones. However, if you don't have the messaging app on your device, you can download it by clicking here.

On the iPhone, this feature is available in the iMessage app. If an iPhone user wants to send a message to an Android user through RCS, it is not possible yet. In this case, SMS will work.