Good news, T-Mobile customers: the Pixel 3a and Pixel 3 phones are now officially available from T-Mo. There's some bad news to go with this good news, though, and that's that the phones won't get Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging support.
T-Mobile has said that its new Pixel phones will not support RCS messaging. The T-Mobile Help account on Twitter broke the bad news this week, and a T-Mo spokesperson confirmed the news to TmoNews today, offering up the following explanation:
“For wireless provider grade performance, T-Mobile’s advanced messaging RCS capabilities are built into the core of the network rather than individual apps or devices, and the Pixels currently do not support this network-level authentication.”
Google offers RCS support in its Messages app and T-Mobile has added RCS messaging to several of its phones, including the Galaxy S7, S8, and S9 series phones, the Note 8 and Note 9, and the OnePlus 6T. It doesn't look like the Pixel 3a or Pixel 3 phones will get RCS messaging on T-Mobile, though, which is a bit of a disappointment during an otherwise exciting week for Pixel fans on T-Mobile.
Because Google and T-Mobile have RCS solutions, it's kind of a bummer that the new Pixel phones won't have RCS messaging on T-Mo. RCS messaging offers several benefits over standard text messaging. They include typing indicators, group chat improvements, delivery and read receipts, and support for large file transfers. If owners of the new Pixels on T-Mobile want these types of features, they'll have to use a third-party messaging app to get them.