AT&T switches to Google’s RCS platform for advanced messaging capabilities

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After years of carriers failing to agree on a rich Universal Communications Service, or RCS, text messaging standard that supports rich chat capabilities 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 get the latest RCS features immediately.”

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 get the latest RCS features immediately.

Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) June 9, 2023

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 achieve these features, but it’s been difficult to get these rich text features over basic messaging for Android devices.

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When will RCS arrive on mobile devices?

While the carriers had tried to institute their own separate RCS standards and support RTF capabilities on each other’s networks through a collaborative initiative in 2019, Google purchased the Jibe platform that same year to begin its own RCS multi-network support efforts.

In 2020 for T-Mobile and by 2021 for AT&T and Verizon, all three major carriers agreed to have Google’s RCS Package Messages app preloaded on phones for users to access a feature-rich app of messaging. Friday’s news indicates that AT&T’s default messaging system will now use Jibe.

Google has introduced more RCS smart messaging features to its Messages app, like adding emojis to replies, in an effort to catch up with Apple’s iMessage. Despite Google’s jabs, Apple hasn’t been in a hurry 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 the family, “buy your mom an iPhone.”

Lockheimer also noted that at Google I/O 2023 last month, the company announced that more than 800 million people are currently using RCS, which it expects to grow to 1 billion users by the end of 2023.

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