As an engineer who spends much time on focusing on WeChat like applications(Skype, Fring, Viber, Kik Messenger, WhatsApp, Talkbox, LINE, Kakao Talk) , I would like to share with you the telecom element in WeChat to show the inheritance and integration of traditional telecom services in the Internet service and applications.
First, WeChat is an application to send messages, the fully IP-based messaging capabilities may replace the traditional telecom services such as SMS, MMS and VMS ,This is very painful for telecommunication operators, because this will inevitably impact on the traditional business income of telecom operators from SMS,MMS and VMS.
Second, asynchronous voice message inherits and improve from the previous PTT (Push To Talk). Users can initiate a one-to-one and one-to-many voice messages. This type of business is called "push to talk" walkie-talkie telecommunications in China, China Mobile provides PTT service based on GPRS, while China Telecom provides PTT service based on CDMA 1X. The traditional PTT service usage scenarios are limited, they are mainly for real-time scheduling such as duty, security and fire. Two hardware of WeChat- WeChat headphones and WeChat walkie-talkie are associated with this feature.
Again, WeChat introduces real-time intercom group, the user can initiate a real-time voice chat. This is the innovation of the asynchronous voice message mentioned above.
Also WeChat really makes the QR code popular in China. Now when you see the ugly QR code again you will not be confused any more, instead you will immediately pick up your phone and scan on it. The QR code originated in Japan and was used in logistics and supply chain. But the QR code was really popular among the average consumers needs to thank the Japanese and Korean operators. In Feature Phone era, Japan and South Korea operators created lots of interesting and sophisticated value-added services, many services used the QR code: electronic ticketing, electronic business cards, mobile advertising and virtual store. After QR code was introduced to China, it was not very popular and also users could not use inferior camera to take QR code for pattern recognition. The popularity of smart phones and the promotion of QR code from WeChat at its early stage made users recognize, understand, familiar with and used to scan the QR code. It is worth mentioning that the WeChat QR code recognition performance is very good, it can recognize skewed and incomplete QR code!
Once again, the auto-reply function of the WeChat public account improves much compared to the USSD service which is forgotten by Chinese telecom operators. The USSD stands for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data,When user enters some pre-set string and sends it to the network operator, the network operator will select the service required by the user according to the instructions. I am wondering why Chinese telecom operators do not support USSD, calls self-service inquiries and billing inquiries can be achieved through USSD. Perhaps the Chinese telecom operators do not want the free USSD to affect chargeable SMS. By the way, Safaricom in Kenya operates the world's most successful mobile payment service M-Pesa with USSD. Look at the following two pictures, the top one is the USSD service diagram of the telecommunications industry, the bottom one is the menu screenshot of the public account of WeChat, they have completely the same business logic. WeChat now is testing custom menu.
Finally,The business model of WeChat's public account is to copy and improve the SP system of the telecommunications industry.
We are talking about the reference, inherit and improve of WeChat to the telecommunications business, Actually telecommunications business also learns from Internet messaging service. Internet messaging applications such as WeChat support to view the contact's status, to create a group and to send a message. The business of the telecommunications industry adds the IMS-based PGM (Presence, Group and Messaging) in 3GPP R5 is considered a good lesson learned from Internet.
Author : Liang Chang Source : http://www.36kr.com/p/202562.html
