How we communicate with others via our mobile phones has been in constant flux since the first cellphone was created, from voice calling to text messaging to a variety of third party applications.
Now, Bell Mobility is the first telecommunications company in Canada to launch Advanced Messaging, a suite of mobile messaging features previously only available through third party apps, and has partnered with Samsung to integrate the experience into its latest generation of smartphones.
Advanced Messaging will allow users to send longer messages (up to 8,000 characters) and create group chats with up to 100 people, as well as transfer files like PDFs, XLS, and ZIP files, send high-resolution images and longer videos. It also boasts sent, received, and read receipts, notifications for when the other person is typing as a way to simplify real-time conversations, and combine all Advanced Messaging messages, SMS, and MMS messages into one conversation view.
“Advanced Messaging is not a new concept, but we’re the first in Canada to launch it in a more user-friendly way that works right out of the box so that you don’t have to download another app or configure the device,” Jeff Gilmore, direct of product management at Bell Mobility, tells IT World Canada. “Advanced Messaging brings to our customers the features that they expect now, with all the third-party apps out there already. And this is not a competition either, we expect our customers to message in many means and across multiple platforms, like Facebook Messenger or LinkedIn’s in-house messaging, because they have lots of choices. The value of our experience, however, is that it just works, no app needed.”
Gilmore adds that he’s proud to work with Samsung, a company that’s “a supportive and willing partner” of bringing such an experience to the market in an integrated sense.
Samsung’s Note8, Galaxy S8, and S8+ will be the first mobile phones to deliver Bell’s Advanced Messaging platform, with other devices to be added in the future. The messaging platform is currently only available between Bell customers who have these phones, and like Apple’s iMessage or BlackBerry’s BBM, Advanced Messaging will come completely integrated in these phones right out of the box.
“We are committed to helping accelerate and expand advanced messaging through our infrastructure and services, and thrilled to deliver this experience to our Galaxy Note8, Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ customers through Bell,” Paul Brannen, COO and executive vice president of mobile devices for Samsung Canada, explains in an Aug. 30 press release.
Advanced Messaging is more than just a specialized messaging experience, however. Gilmore points out that in the future, it will be able to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) and other new technologies to further enhance customer interactions.
“We built a platform that, in the future, will allow you to carry on conversations on different devices as you go from smartphones to television screens, then shift from text to video,” he says. “Then you have AI, which is maturing at a tremendous rate and will change how customers interact with service providers like banks or hotels. Looking ahead, when that is integrated into our Advanced Messaging, users will be able to book a hotel through messaging, and more. It will change to how you talk to people around you as well as the companies you interact with.”