San Francisco:- Google has started the global roll-out of its new Chat messaging service, which is designed to replace SMS text messages on Android phones. Chat has features such as group texts, videos, typing indicators and read receipts, which are not available when sending SMS texts. Chat will be integrated with the default messages app on Android phones. However, it will be up to mobile operators to enable the service and it does not offer encrypted messages.–BBC

 The new system has been in development for several years, but is now beginning to appear on Android phones.

SMS - the short message service - was widely adopted in the 1990s. It lets mobile phones exchange basic 160-character text messages over the mobile network.