Mavenir provided a substantial boost for rich communication services (RCS) in Europe and beyond after connecting the networks of Telefonica, Vodafone Group and Deutsche Telekom, a move spanning 13 countries.

The company noted the peer-to-peer RCS interconnection covers an estimated 158 million subscribers including Deutsche Telekom users in Germany; Telefonica customers in Germany, Spain and the UK; and Vodafone subscribers across Albania, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Turkey and the UK.

Mavenir stated the deployment is one of the largest RCS operator interconnections achieved to date: SVP of business mobility Guillaume Le Mener explained the launch “required a significant amount of expertise and effort by all parties”, but noted the work “paves the way for accelerated and simplified future MNO on-boarding and participation”.

A company representative told Mobile World Live Mavenir is currently working to interconnect two additional European operators, whose subscribers will be able to trade RCS messages with Telefonica, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom users once complete.

The move comes as operators around the globe press ahead with efforts to make interoperable RCS widely available, following a slow start.

In May, T-Mobile US announced a deal to allow cross-network RCS exchanges between its customers and users of Google’s Messages app, while the big-three operators in China have committed to ensuring all handsets sold in the country include RCS capabilities.