Google itself starts rolling out rcs as a replacement for SMS

Google has started rolling out rcs, the successor to SMS. The company will start with that in the United Kingdom and France, but later the feature should also be available in other countries for all Android devices.

Until now, the rollout of rich communication services has always been difficult, because software makers depended on providers for the rollout. They have been slow to do so until now. Google now wants to roll out the service for Android itself. In any case, that process will be opt-in for the time being. Users of the default messaging app will then see a notification upon opening that allows them to upgrade to ‘RCS Chat’. As soon as they send a message to another phone, it is first checked whether it supports rcs. If not, the message will be sent as a regular SMS.

Google tells The Verge that it no longer wants to wait for providers to roll out rcs. This does mean that messages will be sent via Google’s servers for the time being. Google says those messages will be deleted as soon as they arrive. The messages are encrypted in transit, but are not end-to-end encrypted.

RCs has long been seen as the successor to SMS. Not only is it possible to send messages, but it also has all kinds of techniques that are the norm for chat apps today, such as sending photos, videos and read receipts.