T-Mobile and Google partner up for cross-carrier RCS messaging
The road to true RCS interoperability has been a long one, but T-Mobile has just made a step towards making the new standard... well, standard. By teaming up with Google, the carrier has now claimed to be the first in the world to support full standards-based RCS Universal Profile 1.0. By accomplishing this, T-Mobile now supports cross-network messaging with Android devices on other carriers.
For those unfamiliar with the technology, Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a new standard set to replace the aging SMS/MMS. It works by expanding the capabilities of regular text messaging, including support for typing indications, real-time read receipts, group chat customization, and higher quality media sharing, among other features. Put simply, it can be thought of as Android's answer to Apple's iMessage. “We were first in the U.S. to bring RCS messaging to customers in 2015 and will continue to innovate in this space," states T-Mobile CTO, Abdul Saad. "T-Mobile’s RCS customer base is among the largest in the world, and we won’t stop bringing customers ever better ways to connect."
US carriers have supported RCS for years, with T-Mobile leading the pack, although support was spotty at best. There was virtually no support between carriers and Rich Messaging only worked on select phones on the same network. As one of the main supporters of the standard, Google's been hard at work trying to change that for years, although US carriers have made it difficult. At one point the networks even blindsided Google by creating their own Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI), which promised future support for the standard for all major networks. The move surprisingly left Google out seemingly in favor of their own implementation, forcing the software giant to take matters into its own hand and push RCS via its own Google Messages app. The downside of this approach is that users must proactively download the app to make it work.
The move to fully support the RCS standard helps to fix this problem, and now T-Mobile users can experience Rich Messaging via the native messaging app with Android phones from other networks (about 4o T-Mobile phones support it). There's a limit though, which comes from the fact that users on other carriers must use Google Messaging for it to work, at least until AT&T and Verizon come on board as well. Given the initiative that the carriers have already committed to, we're likely not too far off from that happening. "We’re committed to expanding this modern messaging capability to more people and we especially hope this helps bring people closer together right now," says Google's Senior Vice President of Platforms and Ecosystems, Hiroshi Lockheimer.
T-Mobile users don't have to do anything to make the feature work, and it should just work on their native messaging app. Anyone using Google Messages, regardless of the carrier, should already have RCS features enabled as the software giant pushed out the feature late last year. Users simply must agree to use Chat features via a prompt in the main conversations list. Otherwise this can be enabled manually by going to Settings then Chat Features and switching it on. Once the status is set to "Connected", you're ready to use the RCS features. Another way to know you're connected is if you see "Chat" in your text box.