Orange launches Joyn in France

French mobile operator Orange has become the first in the country to launch Joyn rich communications services. The announcement makes France the ninth country to introduce Joyn, while 14 operators in total have pledged their support to the GSMA-backed initiative.

Back in April Orange said that its iOS and Android OTT communications app, Libon, would become Joyn-compatible and offer RCS services once it has deployed Joyn services across Europe.

Using the app, Orange customers are able to take advantage of free HD quality voice calls over 3G or wifi, instant messaging, cloud backup services and personalised visual voicemail from their Android devices. Person to person services require both parties to have the app installed.

Upon making the app Joyn-compatible, further functionality will become available within the app, such as chat and group chat, files transfer and on-call content sharing. Later this year customers in France will be able to use Joyn services natively on their mobile phones. Orange customers using Sony Xperia Z, HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 will be able to buy these devices with Joyn services built into the phones and from 2014, Joyn will be available across the majority of Android and Window handsets currently available to consumers in France.

Orange was one of the three operators to launch Joyn services in Spain in November last year. However, despite the operator support behind the initiative, business systems firm SAP Mobile Services has warned it will only be the very biggest international players that deploy the technology in their own networks. The rest will look to cloud-based offerings to fulfil their needs.

“Only the biggest operators in world will deploy RCS in their networks. Beyond the top five or ten operators globally, the rest of the industry will look for a hosted solution,” John Sims, president of SAP Mobile Services, recently told telecoms.com.

“Everything that is cloud based reduces time to market. Instead of having to go through certain processes to deploy software in their own network, operators are able to collapse that time, as well as pay for it on a per-use basis so that it matches revenue more closely,” Sims added.