Citation: Yu, Z.; Wu, J.; Song, X.;
Fu, W.; Zhai, C. The Quantitative
Research on Behavioral Intention
towards 5G Rich Communication
Services (RCS) among University
Students. Systems 2022, 10, 136.
https://doi.org/10.3390/
systems10050136
Academic Editors: Enrico Vezzetti,
Andrea Luigi Guerra, Gabriele
Baronio, Domenico Speranza and
Luca Ulrich
Received: 8 August 2022
Accepted: 29 August 2022
Published: 1 September 2022
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Article
The Quantitative Research on Behavioral Intention towards 5G
Rich Communication Services among University Students
Zhiyuan Yu
1,
* , Jianming Wu
1
, Xiaoxiao Song
1
, Wenzhao Fu
1
and Chao Zhai
2
1
School of Journalism and Communication, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
2
School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China
* Correspondence: yuzhiyuan@sdu.edu.cn
Abstract:
Supported by artificial intelligence and 5G techniques in mobile information systems, the
rich communication services (RCS) are emerging as new media outlets and conversational agents for
both institutional and individual users in China, which inherit the advantages of the short messaging
service (SMS) with larger coverage and higher reach rate. The benefits can be fulfilled through media
interactions between business and smart phone users. As a competitor of over-the-top services and
social media apps, the adoption of RCS will play a vital role for mobile users. It is important to
conduct quantitative research and reveal the behavioral intention to use (BIU) among RCS users. In
this paper, we collect 195 valid respondents from university via an offline experiment and then build
a structural equation model consisting of task characteristics (TAC), technology characteristics (TEC),
task-technology fit (TTF), performance expectancy (PE), perceived risk (PR), perceived trust (PT),
perceived convenience (PC) and satisfaction (SA). We find that SA, PC and PE have direct impact on
BIU. TTF has indirect path connecting to BIU via PE and SA. The impacts of PT and PR on BIU are
not significant. Performance results show that our proposed model could explain 49.2% and 63.1% of
variance for SA and BIU, respectively. Through revealing the influencing factors of BIU, we can point
out the user perception of the brand-new interactive channel and then provide the guidance for the
large-scale commercialization of 5G RCS.
Keywords:
5G; rich communication services; media interaction; task-technology fit; behavioral
intention; university students
1. Introduction
Relying on the advantages of lower cost and higher reach rate, the short message
service (SMS) has been widely used by individuals and organizations to keep in touch with
target users directly. For example, 80% of people use SMS for business communications
thanks to the merits of it being fast and unobtrusive [
1
]. The open and click-through rates
of text messages are 98% and 19%, respectively [
2
]. From the statistical report, we can see
that SMS is still an active outlet with sufficient total messaging numbers in German, US
and China. In Germany, nearly 7 billion text messages were sent in 2020 [
3
]. Mobile users
in the US exchanged more than 119 billion messages and sent a total of 2.2 trillion SMS
and multimedia messaging service (MMS) [
4
]. In China, the volume of mobile SMS has
gradually climbed to 1761.95 billion in 2021 [5].
Based on GSMA Universal Profile 2.0+ standards, rich communication services (RCS)
can be viewed as updated SMS with person to person (P2P) and application to person
(A2P) interaction modes, which is as killer application of 5G mobile system. Supported by
message as a platform (MaaP) and sophisticated techniques (e.g., AI, big data and cloud
computing) in mobile information systems, RCS contain the functions of plain text, voice
assistant, graphics, chatbot, stream media, extended reality, status bar, shopping, payment,
and location-based services, etc., from the native SMS portal in 5G-enabled mobile phones.
Mobile users no longer need to download or install external applications, but they can
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