Yeah, if there are regional problems with it, that'd make some sense. In US (where I am) it may be a lot more reliable.
...Which also makes some sense as US stuck with SMS and transitioned pretty much directly to MMS and RCS (for non-Apple). And carriers have been pushing RCS.
I'm guessing UK is like a lot of other countries where people have switched to WhatsApp or other proprietary chat systems?
Thanks for admitting that as I've been pestered by relatives here in the UK to fix their sms messages, the problems Google rcs and it's completely useless here. Nothing sends and your clueless until days late. I my opinion. It's weird as If think Google would have at least tried to make it work but it really feels here like they dgaf.