Is Google making Hangouts a requisite to have sync/push notifications?

[WaR BoK]

Hi everybody,
I have a problem ;)

I have 2 mobiles, same brand, same Android version/revision. Both are based on MTK and the OS installed is Jellybean 4.2.1.
I have rooted both phones and uninstalled quite a few apps. But for my needs, everything works.
I control what is installed in both phones, so nobody has made any change in them but me (and Google, obviously)

Both were doing fine until one of them started showing grey wifi bars which indicate something is not working with sync or push notifications. The other one kept on, and still is, working as usual, syncing and receiving push notifications without a problem.
I thought maybe something got corrupted and caused this. I tried to solve it but was unable to do it so I decided to re-flash the original ROM to start configuring it from a clean slate.

Well... I've found that sync/push works fine UNTIL I remove/freeze GOOGLE TALK!! (Or Hangouts)

Before this problem happend both mobiles were working fine AND both of them had Google Talk uninstalled. And one of them still syncs and recive push notifications without Talk or Hangouts installed.

I've tried different revisions of this Jellybean ROM (not cooked ROMs, original ROMs by the manufacturer) and I always end up the same: the "bad mobile" NEEDS Talk/Hangouts installed to be able to sync/receive push... and the "good mobile" has no Talk/Hangouts installed and works without a hitch.

I can't find an explanation for this.


Can somebody share some knowledge?
Is someone experiencing the same issue?
Does anybody know if Google has made some policy change rearding access for new Android installs?