Here Are All the Carriers That Support RCS on IPhone

Posted on by

When Apple announced last year that it would finally bring RCS support to the iPhone , it seemed like the beginning of a new era in technology and communications. Finally, Android and iPhone can directly message each other without having to use SMS—an inherently insecure and outdated messaging protocol responsible for poor group chat performance, poor image and video quality, and most of the things we associate with messaging “green bubble” .

However, even when RCS officially arrived on iPhone with iOS 18 , there were limitations. First, the biggest feature of RCS—end-to-end message encryption—didn’t work ( and still doesn’t ), meaning text messaging between iPhone and Android on RCS is just as insecure as it is over SMS. Moreover, you may not even get the other benefits of RCS on your iPhone since the protocol varies by carrier. At launch, only the major carriers—AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile—supported RCS. If you used another one, you’re out of luck.

Everything has changed since then. More and more carriers are adopting this protocol for iOS, so there’s a good chance your iPhone will be able to send messages to other Android users via RCS.

9to5Mac discovered the latest updates toApple’s list of carriers that support RCS . As of Monday, December 23, these carriers are:

  • AT&T

  • Boost Mobile ( iOS 18.2 required )

  • Spire C

  • Consumer cellular

  • Cricket

  • First network

  • H20 Wireless

  • Subway from T-Mobile

  • PureTalk

  • Red pocket

  • Spectrum Mobile

  • T-Mobile

  • TracFone / Straight talk

  • US Cellular

  • Verizon

  • Visible

  • Xfinity Mobile

As 9to5Mac highlights, the two main exceptions at the moment are Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile. Collectively, these carriers have about three million customers and were acquired by T-Mobile earlier this year, so it’s a little surprising that it’s taking them so long to implement this messaging protocol. In all likelihood, these operators will add RCS support in the near future.

As a reminder, you can make sure RCS is enabled on your iPhone by going to Settings > Apps > Messages > RCS Messages . Note that even if this setting is enabled and your carrier supports RCS, you may not see RCS for all chats with Android devices. An Android device must also support RCS, including the device itself, its carrier, and its corresponding messaging app. If the other user does not have RCS enabled for any reason, you will see that SMS is the protocol used for that particular conversation.

More…

0
Apple

Leave a Reply