AT&T Switches to Google's RCS Platform for Advanced Texting Features
The carrier is the first to get advanced text message features from Google's platform, rather than just using its Messages app.
After years of carriers failing to agree on a universal rich communications service, or RCS, text messaging standard that supports advanced chat features between networks, Google says AT&T is on board to use its Jibe RCS platform.
Google Senior Vice President Hiroshi Lockheimer tweeted the news late Friday that AT&T's default Android messaging will use Jibe "so their users will get the latest RCS features instantly."
Today I'm excited to share that we're working with AT&T to accelerate adoption of the RCS standard, and that AT&T's default Android messaging will now be via the Jibe platform, so their users will get the latest RCS features instantly.
— Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) June 9, 2023
"RCS powered by Jibe will be the default on all Android devices sold by AT&T from here on out," Jason Kaufman, AT&T assistant vice president of product management and development, said in a statement. "RCS provides for a highly secure and modern messaging experience for Android users. This includes support for high quality photos and videos, read receipts, enhanced group messaging and encryption."
AT&T's existing Android users who have RCS will keep enjoying their current messaging features, while users who don't have it yet can ensure they're using RCS with Jibe by downloading Google's Messages app.
Unlike SMS and MMS, which send messages over cellular networks, the RCS standard uses data networks to send long messages, uncompressed photos and large group chats without a hitch.
Apple's iMessage and chat apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger already use data to get those features, but it's been a struggle to get these advanced text features on basic messaging for Android devices.
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When is RCS coming to mobile devices?
Though carriers had tried instituting their own separate RCS standards and support rich text features on each other's networks via a collaborative initiative in 2019, Google bought the Jibe platform in the same year to start its own efforts at RCS multinetwork support.
In 2020 for T-Mobile and by 2021 for AT&T and Verizon, all three major carriers agreed to have Google's RCS-packing Messages app preloaded on phones to give users access to an app with rich texting features. Friday's news means AT&T's default messaging system will now use Jibe, however.
Google has been introducing more RCS smart texting features in its Messages app, like adding emojis to replies, in efforts to catch up to Apple's iMessage. Despite jabs from Google, Apple has been in no rush to adopt the messaging standard -- and at Vox Media's Code Conference last year, CEO Tim Cook even told an attendee that if he wanted to have seamless messaging when chatting with family, "buy your mom an iPhone."
Lockheimer also noted that at Google I/O 2023 last month, the company announced that over 800 million people currently use RCS, which it expects to grow to 1 billion users by the end of 2023.
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