Google aims to upgrade traditional SMS with smarter ‘RCS’: How it works

Tired of dilly-dallying at the end of US telecom carriers, Google has announced to roll out its own Rich Communication Services (RCS) on Android that will replace the traditional SMS text messaging with more useful chat features.

"To make your conversations more seamless, we've worked on upgrading traditional SMS text messaging with more useful chat features, powered by RCS (Rich Communication Services)," Google said in a statement on Thursday.

With RCS on Android, when you and your friends message each other with new chat features, you can chat over Wi-Fi or mobile data, send and receive high-resolution photos and videos, and see if people have received your latest messages.

"Plus, you'll get better group chats, with the ability to name groups, add and remove people to and from groups, and see if people haven't seen the latest messages," informed Google.

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Earlier this year, Google enabled the ability for anyone in the UK, France, and Mexico to get chat features in Messages.

Users of Google's app will eventually see a notification to "Do more with Messages," and then they'll be able to "enable chat features" which is RCS.

Chat features are already available for some in Google Messages, and are being broadly rolled out in the US.

"If you already have Messages, you'll also be prompted to enable chat features in the coming weeks. If you don't have Messages, you can download it on the Play Store. We expect this service to be broadly available in the US by the end of year," said the company.

Google said it is committed to working with its partners, including carriers and device makers, to provide a consistent and interoperable experience for everyone on Android.

RCS is a communication protocol between mobile telephone carriers and between phone and carrier, aiming at replacing SMS messages with a text-message system that is richer and can transmit in-call multimedia.