Back in March, T-Mobile switched its Android customers to using Google’s Android Messages app as a default in order to enjoy SMS and RCS services. AT&T made the same announcement today, leaving Verizon as the only carrier in the country who has not switched to this default messaging platform.
For quite some time now, AT&T has supported RCS. But since it wasn’t fully supportive, the interoperability of RCS on other networks has not been fully enjoyed by customers. With today’s news, AT&T customers get to enjoy using end-to-end encryption for RCS. And since Google has long been pushing for RCS to become the default texting option for Android, this is definitely a welcomed change.
RCS has several benefits over regular SMS. For one thing, it allows users to send large files. It also has no character limits, offers better group chats, offers end-to-end encryption for one-on-one chats, Wi-Fi support, and shows typing indicators.
Now that AT&T has adapted to this change, Google is getting close to making its Android Messages app the default app in the country for sending out messages. We only have to wait until Verizon adapts to this change too.
