Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T have pulled the plug on CCMI, their big RCS project - 9to5Google

After months of silence it seemed all but certain that CCMI, a project from all major US carriers to bring RCS to the masses was probably dead, but now a report seems to confirm as much.

The Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative for RCS is — probably — dead?

A spokesperson for Verizon confirmed to the publication that “the owners of the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative decided to end the joint venture effort.”.

The project was started by Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint in 2019 as a method of bringing improved messaging to all of their customers, at least those using an Android phone.

The death of CCMI doesn’t mean that US carriers are done with efforts to bring RCS to the masses, though.

T-Mobile recently announced a deal with Google that would bring RCS to all of its Android customers through the Google Messages app, which has also rolled out carrier-independent RCS to every Android phone in the world as of last year.