Google has expanded the Google Voice service to support MMS in almost 100 carriers in the United States and Canada. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Rogers, Bell Canada and Telus are among the carriers offering the service.
The announcement was made by Google Voice lead manager Alex Wiesen through a post in his Google+ account.
While the full list has not yet been disclosed, notably missing from the mentioned companies is Verizon, which could be the company that Wiesen was hinting at as he wrote, "If you're a carrier, and you want to enable MMS support for Google Voice, please let us know. We're big fans of text messaging interoperability."
Google Voice only previously worked with text messages, as the service did not work well with the MMS settings of most carriers. While support for Google Voice MMS has been on and off in some carriers, the service was very spotty, working one day then not again the other, or being able to receive MMS but not being able to send them.
Wiesen's announcement means that a better Google Voice MMS service may now be experienced by users over the coming weeks.
Not all the kinks have been worked out of the Google Voice MMS service though, with reports of pictures appearing as links or attachments in the messages, or some not being received at all still.
One other problem is with the group MMS option. Messages sent through this option will still be received, however, as several different messages, which defeats the purpose of the group MMS.
The integration of Google Voice is just one of the many updates that Google is incorporating into Android L, the next version of the company's mobile operating system.
Reports suggest that users with Google Voice accounts can make calls for free and receive voice mail through Google Hangouts using their Android smartphones.
Google Voice users will be able to do all these functions over Wi-Fi, trimming the need to acquire expensive data plans. Google Voice accounts are free to create and allow users to send communications using the real phone number of the user.
Google Voice was folded into Google Hangouts earlier this year, as Hangouts has become the company's comprehensive communication app capable of making voice calls, video chats and instant messaging.
Wiesen added that there are more messaging improvements coming to Google Voice.
