What is RCS messaging, how does it work, and will it replace SMS? | Digital Trends

Text messaging — the communications tech we’ve used since the 1990s — is showing its age. Texts don’t perform the way we now want them to: They don’t support encryption, group messaging, or the animated stickers everyone likes to trade on apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat. They rely on a cellular connection and a signal and limit you to just 160 characters. Despite those restrictions, old habits die hard. Text messaging, or SMS , still gets plenty of love from the public.

The text messaging backstory The invention of text messaging predates the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Palm Pilot. SMS was first proposed in 1982 for the Global System for Mobile Communications , a second-generation cell standard devised by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute . Despite the explosive growth of SMS, the tech didn’t evolve all that much from the 1990s. Even as phone form factors changed and Apple’s iPhone popularized the modern-day touchscreen smartphone, SMS remained the same, right down to the 160-character limit.

Chat is a protocol Chat is not a messaging app per se; it’s the friendly name for the RCS protocol or RCS Universal Profile. Chat is available only on two apps: Google’s Messages and Samsung Messages. While this may seem restrictive, most Android-based smartphone manufacturers ship with this default messaging app. There are a few moving parts required for Chat to work as designed. First, carriers must support the protocol. You also need to have a device and messaging app that supports Chat.

Where we are now RCS is widely available today and charged to your data plan, but you have to opt into it via Google or your provider. More recently, users signing onto a new phone or opening the Messages app for the first time are asked if they want enhanced messages with chat features — which is RCS.

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