Read update
- New countries, list re-formatted
After Google deployed RCS (Rich Communication Services) in the U.S. without the help of the four three big carriers, the company seems to be set to repeat that effort internationally. People in multiple countries across the world report that they're able to use RCS features in the Messages app powered by Google's Jib servers. That might indicate that we'll soon see universal and worldwide RCS support from Google, regardless of country or carrier.
The latest country to join the fray is India with tips coming in from our readers over the last few days, and even more mentions on Twitter (1, 2, 3, 4).
Android Police has been fielding reports of RCS activation from our readers and local publications. We've got a region-by-region timeline below:
April
- Brazil
- Italy
- Portugal
- Singapore
May
- Argentina
- Colombia
- Dominican Republic
- Pakistan
- Peru
- Poland
- Turkey
June - July
- Egypt
- Guyana
August
- Chile
- Denmark
- Ecuador
- Estonia
- Jamaica
- Netherlands
- Trinidad And Tobago
- Venezuela
September
- Armenia
- Austria
- Bangladesh
- Belgium
- Cambodia
- Costa Rica
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Georgia
- Greece
- Ireland
- Israel
- Finland
- Kazakhstan
- Kosovo
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Malaysia
- Moldova
- Nepal
- New Zealand
- Nigeria
- Norway
- Puerto Rico
- Romania
- Russia
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Sri Lanka
- Switzerland
- The Netherlands
- Ukraine
- Vietnam
October
- Algeria
- Angola
- Australia
- Bulgaria
- Canada
- Ghana
- Indonesia
- Japan
- Kenya
- Kuwait
- Latvia
- Lebanon
- Liberia
- Macedonia
- Malawi
- Maldives
- Morocco
- Myanmar
- New Zealand
- Nicaragua
- Philippines
- Qatar
- South Korea
- Sweden
- Taiwan
- Tanzania
- Turkmenistan
- Uganda
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
November
- India
It didn't look like the carriers in any of those countries were turning on RCS given the sheer volume of people getting the feature — local sources like Italy's TuttoAndroid, Czechia's Dotekomanie, and Portugal's Pplware say as much — so we presume that Google is continuing its own rollout efforts.
Left & Middle: Singapore rollout. Right: Italy rollout.
Messages users in these areas see a banner when they open the app explaining how RCS works and the fact that they can now enable it, just like in the U.S. last year. The feature can also be activated via Messages's settings if you dismiss the pop-up initially. It's currently unclear whether other RCS-compatible apps like Samsung Messages are in on the function as well, but since the augmented text messages seem to be rolling out thanks to Google's doing, it's unlikely.
Denmark rollout
As we explained in our extensive FAQ post on the topic, RCS is basically the next-gen replacement for SMS/MMS. It allows you to send messages and media between RCS-compatible devices over data connections, including Wi-Fi. The service behaves like an instant messenger, giving you features like read receipts, typing indicators, and proper group conversation support.
Netherlands rollout
Like most things Google touches, the update appears to roll out as a server-side change. You can check if it's already available to you by heading to Messages' settings and tapping the Chat features entry. Hopefully, RCS will soon be enabled for more people around the world to replace or at least augment the ancient SMS technology.
Croatia rollout
UPDATE: 2020/11/03 5:49am PST BY RITA EL KHOURY
New countries, list re-formatted
We have reformatted our bulleted list into a timeline, updated it with countries we had missed in previous months (thanks to all of our readers!), and added countries to the October and November lists. Most notable among these is India, Canada (only on a few small operators though), Philippines, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates.
Source: TuttoAndroid, Pplware
Thanks: Marco, Irek, Ahmer, Armando, elmasevmem, Rafael, @wilflare, @jas0nsg, Rúben Santos, igor on the internet, Mikkel, Alex, Jeppe, Primoz, Mate, Přemysl, Mantas, Madhawa, Abhijit, Mathus, Ido, John, Steve, @Drilon, Matej, Christophe, Nick, Emmanouil, nicholas, Eric, Konstantins, Yasir, Ron, Kurt, Danny, Plamen, Abdrii, @GuyNamedDwinn, Chris, Balakumar, Treyvon, Dani, Hamza, Vamsi,