Zain to pilot Joyn Rich Communications Services

Zain Group has today announced that it will pilot Rich Communications Services (RCS) under the Joyn initiative launched by the GSM Association. This makes Zain Group the first operator group to pilot Joyn in the Middle East.

RCS is a major advancement by the operator community to compete more effectively with the over-the-top players. It enables services such as enhanced messaging and voice, video calling and content sharing directly from a phone’s contact book, regardless of the network or device used. Joyn is a global initiative to deploy inter-operator RCS and Zain is gaining access to it through its relationship with Vodafone, with which it has a Partner Market agreement.

Zain is set to pilot Joyn in the Middle East in order to assess its suitability and compatibility with local conditions.

Joyn has been piloted and introduced by a number of leading mobile operators around the world, and Zain is keen to have the platform piloted in the Middle East as soon as possible.