Google rolls out RCS support for Rogers customers in Canada

By Julian Chokkattu December 13, 2016

t mobile rcs google rollout messenger

Google is picking up the pace on its RCS rollout with support for Rogers customers in Canada. Rich Communication Services is the evolution of SMS, and while 49 carriers worldwide have supported it since its launch in 2007, Google’s Universal RCS platform launched just last month with Sprint in the United States.

Many of those carriers run an older version of RCS that’s only partially compatible with Google’s Universal platform, but the search giant’s aim is to unify the service to offer a “consistent” service that works with non-Android phones as well.

Recommended Videos

So what exactly is RCS? It’s text messaging modernized to be on par with IP-based messaging systems like Facebook Messenger, iMessage, and Google’s Allo. RCS implementation in SMS clients means apps can recognize and display when someone is typing and transmit videos and images up to 100 times larger than multimedia text messaging (MMS). It also features read receipts, high-resolution photo-sharing, and robust group messaging, such as the ability to name them, as well as add members or leave groups.

Google’s only app that supports RCS at the moment is Google Messenger — the default texting application on some Android phones. Sprint is the first carrier to support Google’s Universal RCS platform, and Sprint will also preinstall Messenger on Android phones starting in 2017.

For Rogers, the second and latest carrier to support the Universal RCS platform, you’ll also need to use Google Messenger to make use of the new service.

“We’re beginning to roll out the enhanced messaging experience today, and it will be available to all Rogers customers soon,” writes Amir Sarhangi, Google’s head of RCS.

Sarhangi also says Rogers will “preload Messenger as the standard messaging app for new Android devices” in 2017.

The trick is to get carriers like T-Mobile to move away from its own RCS platform and switch to Google’s. The search giant says RCS will launch with more partners in the coming months.

Topics

Julian Chokkattu

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Julian is the mobile and wearables editor at Digital Trends, covering smartphones, fitness trackers, smartwatches, and more…

Mobile

Apple and Google are teaming up to make tracking devices less creepy

Apple AirTag lifestyle image.

Apple and Google are partnering to develop a new standard for Bluetooth tracking devices that seeks to stop malicious stalking and other abusive use of gadgets like the Apple AirTag. Essentially, this would be a universal, OS-level tracker detection and alert system that will work uniformly across Android and iOS. The two companies are inviting stakeholders to review the proposal and submit their feedback within the next three months.

Once the feedback period is over, all the involved parties will work together to finalize the technical standardization, with the hope of releasing a market-ready version by the end of the year. Following the release and adoption by makers of tracking devices, the tech will be generally made available via a software update for Android and iOS devices.
Better late than never

Mobile

I wish I never bought my Google Pixel 7 Pro

The Google Pixel 7 Pro standing up.

As someone who writes about smartphones, tablets, and other smart devices for a day job, it likely comes as no surprise to you that I'm the guy who friends and family come to for advice on which smartphone to buy. In recent years, my advice has more-or-less been the same: "Buy a Google Pixel." They're reliable, as close to an iPhone on Android as you're going to get, and have absolutely phenomenal cameras. They were a slam dunk of a recommendation, and I've been recommending Google's smartphone range to my nearest and dearest for years now.

That's why it's been tough for me to admit this -- but after almost six months with my new Pixel smartphone, I think I'm finally ready to face up to the truth. I wish I'd never bought my Google Pixel 7 Pro, as it's destroying my faith in Google.
I fell in love with an older Pixel

Mobile

Your next Samsung phone might ditch Google Search for Bing

The screens on the Galaxy A54 and Galaxy S23 Ultra.

When you buy an Android phone, you expect Google Search to be installed out of the box as the default search engine. But that may not be the case when you buy your next Samsung phone. According to a report over the weekend, Samsung might abandon Google Search in favor of Bing as the default search engine for future Samsung Galaxy phones.

The possibility that Samsung is considering replacing Google Search with Bing on its smartphones sent Google into a "panic," according to the New York Times, Why? As the report explains, "An estimated $3 billion in annual revenue is at stake with the Samsung contract." If Samsung doesn't want to keep using Google for the default search engine on its phones, that's $3 billion per year Google will no longer get. And if Samsung decides it wants Bing instead of Google, who knows how many other companies will follow suit and do the same.
Why Samsung wants Bing over Google