Google and Rogers are bringing RCS messaging enhancements to Canada

Just last month, Google announced that Sprint would be the very first carrier to bring RCS (Rich Communications Services) enhancements to customers via the Google Messenger app. Now the company plans to bring the richer messaging experience to customers in Canada, thanks to a new partnership with Rogers.

To make sure the most people will get the chance to take advantage of these new enhancements, Rogers will preload Messenger as the standard messaging app for new Android devices next year.

So, what exactly is RCS? Well, many people rely on SMS to make plans and stay in touch with friends every day, but unfortunately SMS is pretty far behind every other messaging platform in terms of features. For instance, Google Allo, Hangouts, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and plenty of others allow users to take advantage of real group chat, read receipts, typing indicators and more. Now, Google is working with a number of carriers around the world to bring all of those features and more to SMS.

As stated above, RCS features, which are powered by the Jibe RCS cloud, are only available on Sprint and Rogers networks at the moment, but more carriers will be added to the growing list in the next couple of months.