This is interesting, as Skinny/Spark was the first to activate RCS in the network. I ported my Skinny to 2Degrees on account due to the small business 50% off deal, and I too seem to fail to activate chat features in messenger. May be it doesn't really work on ported numbers? 

Edit: My status so far is still at 'setting up' and verify your mobile number comes blue every so often like it's not verifying ... 

Yep, thats what mine is doing and if you try too many times it tells you to come back tomorrow :-)

I did notice under Messages, Settings, Advanced down the bottom of the screen it says "SMSC 027 xxx xxxx" and it is greyed out, dont know if its relevant.

peejayw:

 

OK, so I guess thats not the reason why I cannot get Chat Features set up in Google Messenger. When I try, after putting in country code and phone number (021 xxx-xxx) and hitting Verify Your Number it just says Trying to Verify Your Number and nothing further happens, never get the code from Google.

Have you tried putting phone number in without the leading 0 ie. 21-xxx-xxx

Yes, I have tried it both ways.