Contrary to initial rumors, T-Mobile seemingly isn’t rolling out support for Google’s Rich Communication Services (RCS) protocol to Messenger. Reports of RCS support for Messenger coming from T-Mobile initially emerged on Tuesday after several T-Mobile customers started reporting that their Messenger app started supporting Google’s RCS protocol. However, after 9to5Google investigated the matter, the outlet concluded that the initial report was based on rumors and possible misinformation.
The possibility of T-Mobile adding support for Google’s RCS protocol to Messenger appeared when one Reddit user recently posted on the T-Mobile subreddit claiming that the service is active. The source wasn’t a T-Mobile customer but has instead provided several tweets from anonymous Twitter users who were claiming that their Messenger app now supports Google’s RCS. Today, the source claims that those tweets are inaccurate as the outlet debunked a follow-up from another Reddit user who was claiming that they have a source at T-Mobile who said the feature is currently in testing “with early digits adopters.” As some Reddit users were skeptical about the possibility of a random person online conveniently having a source close to the third largest wireless carrier in the United States, the user in question even posted a Hangouts screenshot that was supposed to confirm the legitimacy of their source. Over the course of the next 24 hours, this confusing situation was tipped to 9to5Google by a Google+ user and as it turns out, that person seems to be the same source revealed by the Reddit user who contributed to the initial rumor about T-Mobile adding Google’s RCS support to the Messenger app. While blurred for anonymity, it’s easy to see that the two screenshots below depict messages that were likely sent by the same person seeing how their names match.
Overall, it seems that these rumors don’t have a lot of basis in reality as they were apparently prompted by a small number of people that either didn’t prove to have any connection to T-Mobile or aren’t even T-Mobile customers. Even though T-Mobile seemingly isn’t rolling out support for Google’s RCS to Messanger, the wireless carrier did already introduce its own RCS solution back in 2015.
