Google said that it is launching Rich Communications Services (RCS) for Telenor’s 214 million subscribers in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia and India. The upgraded version of SMS will be available on Android devices through the Messenger app.
Features like group chat, high-resolution photo sharing, reading receipts and others will become available, supported by the Jibe RCS cloud from Google.
In markets where RCS is launched, Telenor subscribers who already have the Messenger application on their phone will automatically get access to RCS services through an app update. Subscribers who do not have the app can install it from the Google Play store. Many new Android devices will come with Messenger for Android already loaded as the default SMS and RCS messaging app.
This is Google's first major deal outside North America to roll out RCS via the Messenger app. It was first launched last year with Sprint in the US and Rogers in Canada.
