The whole point of RCS is its default-ness, though, as a lowest-common-denominator replacement for SMS, so it didn't make a ton of sense to have it as an optional extra in Google's messaging app. The carriers' creation of the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI) was seen as a snub of Google's RCS plans at the time, and in response Google started rolling out RCS without the carriers by enabling RCS in the UK and France, provided both users were on Google Messages and had the "Chat" setting turned on. Google killed Google Allo (Google messaging app from 2016) in 2018, with the plan to push RCS over Google Messages (Google messaging app from 2014). Speaking of Google, the company is actually the biggest player in RCS messaging, thanks to its purchase of Jibe-a middleware company offering RCS solutions to carriers-in 2015. Like those other products, RCS lacks robust multi-device support for devices that don't have a phone number, like laptops, desktops, tablets, and watches. RCS also has all the standard carrier-centric problems you get from phone number-driven products like Google Allo and the new Google Pay, which envision your phone number as your online identity and the center of your communication universe.
Earlier this month, the Epic Games lawsuit revealed internal Apple communication that made it clear the company views iMessage's exclusion of Android users as a competitive advantage, and RCS would poke holes in the walls of Apple's walled garden. RCS's second major problem is Apple, which will never support RCS unless the company has a major change of strategy. RCS is a decade-old specification, and it feels like it-the spec lacks things you would want in a modern messaging app, like encryption. Even if you could snap your fingers and instantly make every phone on every carrier RCS compatible today, it still would not be a viable competitor to an over-the-top service.
The problem is that there's no motivation for carriers to actually roll out RCS: free messaging is the norm, so there's no clear way to make money off an RCS rollout. With the carriers in charge of RCS, everything about the rollout has moved at an absolutely glacial pace. However, the owners remain committed to enhancing the messaging experience for customers including growing the availability of RCS." What is the motivation for RCS? Verizon confirmed the news to Light Reading, saying, "The owners of the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative decided to end the joint venture effort. RCS includes things like typing indicators, presence information, read receipts, and location sharing. SMS (which started in 1992!) has not kept up with the feature set of over-the-top messaging services like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and iMessage, and while RCS still wouldn't be able to keep up with services like those, it can bring slightly more messaging functionality to carrier messaging.
RCS is a carrier-controlled GSMA standard introduced in 2008 as an upgrade for SMS, the ancient standard for basic carrier messaging.
Now, Light Reading is reporting that initiative is dead, meaning that the carriers have accomplished basically nothing on the RCS front in the past 18 months.
A year and a half ago, the cellular carriers created the "Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI)," a joint venture between AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon that would roll out enhanced messaging to the masses in 2020. The Rich Communication Services (RCS) rollout continues to be a hopeless disaster.