Google announces more carrier support for its implementation of RCS, rebrands Messenger to Android Messages, makes app default on phones from LG, ZTE, others
When text messaging was simple, SMS worked beautifully. You could send 160 characters to anyone with a cellphone, and they'd receive it the same way they would a phone call.
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2017 announcement is the opening move of a six-year campaign to replace SMS with RCS on Android. Google starts by signing carriers one at a time and pre-installing Android Messages on handsets from LG, ZTE and other OEMs — distribution first, features later.
The arc that follows shows why the groundwork mattered: within a year Google launched Chat, an RCS-based service meant to supplant SMS and opened RCS business messaging to Sprint customers; by late 2019 it rolled RCS out to all US Android Messages users, and by 2023 it turned RCS on by default and added group end-to-end encryption — closing the no-E2E gap the original carrier-built design left open.
First-order effects
- LG, ZTE and other OEM partners now ship Android Messages as the factory-default texting app, giving Google's client a guaranteed install base instead of competing for downloads.
- Carriers joining Google's implementation adopt a single Google-defined RCS stack rather than maintaining their own, concentrating protocol decisions at Google.
Second-order effects
- A unified RCS base lets Google layer services on top: the 2018 Chat launch adds typing indicators, full-resolution media and group texts over carrier infrastructure, and business messaging turns the same pipe into a channel for brands reaching Sprint subscribers.
- SMS's limitations become the marketing case for upgrading — every carrier that joins shrinks the pool of users stuck on plain text, pressuring holdout carriers to follow.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the default messaging experience on Android shifts from a carrier-owned commodity (SMS) to a Google-operated platform — with Google ultimately taking over the rollout itself in 2019 and adding encryption by default in 2023 once it controlled enough of the user base.
- That trajectory also exposes the trade-off of carrier-built RCS: the interoperable-but-unencrypted design Google inherited took until 2023 to gain group end-to-end encryption, illustrating how protocol governance shapes security outcomes years downstream.
The trend: Carrier messaging is consolidating around Google's RCS implementation, with Google progressively absorbing control from carriers — from pre-installed clients to a default-on, encrypted service.