Vodafone has announced that it is pulling the plug on its own RCS messaging support in the UK. An alert is already going out to the customers that the RCS messaging support will shut down between March 15 and March 31, 2023. According to some users, a message delivered by Vodafone tells the customers that the company will be turning off RCS message support.
With this change, Vodafone customers will no longer be able to use RCS provided by the carrier. Affected customers will get MMS packages as complimentary to their accounts for 60 days to avoid additional charges.
Samsung Messages app will be updated soon with Google's RCS support
The termination of RCS message support comes as a part of a deal between Vodafone and Google, announced in late February 2023. With this deal, Vodafone will adopt Google's implementation of RCS. On the support page, Vodafone has said how customers will be affected by the RCS shutdown, but no one has to stop using the service.
To use RCS, users have to install the Google Messages app and set it as the default messaging app. RCS will be reactivated within 72 hours. A pop-up menu will appear to activate, and users must accept the terms and conditions of Google's RCS implementation.
Samsung users that use the Samsung Messages app as their default messaging app on Galaxy phones have two options: switch to the Google Messages app or wait for the Samsung Messages app to get Google RCS support. This would be required by those users who use older Samsung smartwatches that use the Samsung Messages app by default.
