Short message service (SMS) is a service available on most digital mobile phones that permits the sending of short messages (also known as text messages, or more colloquially texts or even txts) between mobile phones and other handheld devices. SMS was originally designed as part of the GSM digital mobile phone standard, but is now available on a wide range of networks, including 3G networks.
The first SMS is believed to have been sent in December 1992 from a Personal Computer (PC) to a mobile phone on the Vodafone GSM network in the UK.
The message payload is 140 bytes: either 160 7-bit characters, 140 8-bit characters, or 70 2-byte characters in languages such as Chinese, Korean, or Japanese when encoded using 2-byte UTF-16 character encoding (see Unicode). This does not include routing data and other metadata, which is additional to the payload size.
SMS service is developing very fast through out the world. In 2001, more than 250 billion SMS were sent, comparing to the 16 billion sent in 2000. SMS is very popular in Europe, Asia and Australia. It is so popular that the term texting (used as a verb) refers to the act of cell phone users sending SMS text messages back and forth. In China, SMS is very popular, and has brought service providers large profit (18 billion SMS were sent in 2001 [1]).
It is particularly popular amongst young urbanites. In many markets, it is comparatively cheap. For example, in Australia a message typically costs between AUD 0.20 and AUD 0.25 to send, compared to a voice call costs anywhere between AUD 0.40 and AUD 2.00 per minute. In Singapore, hundreds of messages can be sent per month for free, after which messages cost between SGD 0.05 and SGD 0.07 each to send.
In the US, however, SMS has limited appeal. Although a SMS usually costs only USD 0.05 (many providers also offer monthly allotments), many users have unlimited "mobile-to-mobile" minutes, high monthly minute allotments, or unlimited service. Moreover, "walkie talkie" services offer the instant connectivity of SMS service and are typically unlimited.
New SMS services offer automated "alerts" sent on a regular basis giving news, weather, financial information, sporting event scores, and other information.
SMS is also increasingly being used for "real-world" services. For example, some vending machines now allow payment by sending an SMS; usually, the cost of the item bought is added to the user's phone bill.
Because of the limited message lengths and tiny user interface of mobile phones, SMS users commonly make extensive use of abbreviations, particularly the use of numbers for words (for example, "4" in place of the word "for"), and the omission of vowels, as in the phrase "txt msg". To avoid the even more limited message lengths allowed when using Cyrillic letters, some Russians use the Latin alphabet for their own language. Predictive text software that attempts to guess words (AOL's T9) or letters (Eatoni's LetterWise) reduces the labor of time-consuming input and may make abbreviations less necessary.
A few mobile phones allow long SMS messages (longer than the abovementioned limits) to be sent. This is accomplished by breaking up the long message into shorter messages and adding some code indicating that the messages should be strung together on the recepient's phone. It should be noted, however, that this does not count as just one SMS; it is billed as multiple SMS messages depending on the length of the message.
Several telecommunication carriers have recently started offering so called premium rate short messages, which through higher pricing and revenue sharing allow companies to be paid for their services by sending a short message. This is also becoming increasingly popular, but problems arise when the premium pricing is not advertised.
An increasing trend towards spamming cell phone users through SMS has prompted cellular service carriers to take steps against the practice, before it becomes a widespread problem. No major spamming incidents involving SMS have been reported as of October 2003, but the existence of cell-phone spam has already been noted by industry watchdogs, including Consumer Reports magazine.
SMS has caused subtle but interesting changes in society since it became popular. Newsworthy events include (in chronological order):
- In January 2001, Joseph Estrada was forced to resign from the post of president of the Philippines. The popular campaign against him was widely reported to have been co-ordinated with SMS chain letters.
See also
- GenieTexter - Free SMS sending program
- leet
- Mercury - Free SMS sending program
- MMS (multimedia - images, sounds...-message service, the new standard).
- shorthand
- Short Message Service Centres
- SMPP
- SMSSend - Free SMS sending program
- Speedwords