Beginning of the Short Message Service

Short Message Service (SMS) is part of the text messaging service of most telephone, World Wide Web, and mobile phone systems. It uses standardized communication protocols to enable fixed/fixed or mobile devices to exchange short text messages. SMS was the most widely used data application, with an estimated 3.5 billion active users, or about 80% of all mobile phone subscribers, at the end of 2010.

First development

The SMS concept was developed in 1984 in the Franco-German GSM partnership by Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert. GSM is optimized for telephony as it has been identified as the main application. The main idea for SMS was to use this phone-optimized system and transport messages on signaling routes necessary to control telephone traffic during periods when there was no signaling traffic. In this way, unused resources in the system can be used to transport messages at a minimal cost.

However, it was necessary to limit the length of the messages to 128 bytes (later improved to 160 seven-bit characters) so that the messages could fit into existing signaling formats. Based on his personal observations and analysis of the typical length of postcards and telex messages, Hillebrand stated that 160 characters were enough to succinctly represent most messages.

Early development

The first proposal to trigger the development of SMS was made by a contribution from Germany and France at the GSM Group meeting in Oslo in February 1985. This proposal was further developed in the GSM WP1 Services subgroup (President Martine Alvernhe, France Telecom) based on a contribution from Germany. There were also initial discussions in the WP3 network aspects subgroup chaired by Jan Audestad (Telenor). The result was approved by the main GSM group in a June 1985 document distributed to the industry. The SMS input documents were prepared by Friedhelm Hillebrand (Deutsche Telekom) with contributions from Bernard Ghillebaert (France Télécom). The definition introduced in GSM by Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert required the provision of an alphanumeric service for sending messages to mobile users "with recognition capabilities". The last three words made SMS much more useful than the common message paging that some might have in mind in cell phones.

Early implementations

The first text message was sent via Vodafone's UK GSM network on December 3, 1992, by Neil Papworth of Sema Group (now Mavenir Systems) with a personal computer to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone using an Orbitel 901 phone. The text of the message was "Merry Christmas.

The first commercial implementation of a Short Message Service Center (SMSC) was carried out by Aldiscon, part of Logica (now part of Acision) with Telia (now TeliaSonera) in Sweden in 1993, followed by Fleet Call (now Nextel) in the US. , Telenor in Norway [citation needed] and BT Cellnet (now O2 UK) [citation needed] later in 1993. All early SMS gateway installations were for network notifications sent to mobile phones, generally to report voicemail messages.

Radiolinja (now part of Elisa) in Finland offered consumers the first text messaging service commercially sold to consumers as a personal text messaging service in 1993. Most early cellular phone phones did not support the ability to send text messages and Nokia was the only phone manufacturer whose entire cellular phone line supported the sending of text messages by users in 1993. According to Matti Makkonen, the inventor of text messages, the Nokia 2010, launched in January 1994, was the first mobile phone to easily support text message writing.

Early implementations

The first text message was sent via Vodafone's UK GSM network on December 3, 1992, by Neil Papworth of Sema Group (now Mavenir Systems) with a personal computer to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone using an Orbitel 901 phone. The text of the message was "Merry Christmas.

The first commercial implementation of a Short Message Service Center (SMSC) was carried out by Aldiscon, part of Logica (now part of Acision) with Telia (now TeliaSonera) in Sweden in 1993, followed by Fleet Call (now Nextel) in the US. , Telenor in Norway [citation needed] and BT Cellnet (now O2 UK) [citation needed] later in 1993. All early SMS gateway installations were for network notifications sent to mobile phones, generally to report voicemail messages.

Radiolinja (now part of Elisa) in Finland offered consumers the first text messaging service commercially sold to consumers as a personal text messaging service in 1993. Most early cellular phone phones did not support the ability to send text messages and Nokia was the only phone manufacturer whose entire cellular phone line supported the sending of text messages by users in 1993. According to Matti Makkonen, the inventor of text messages, the Nokia 2010, launched in January 1994, was the first mobile phone to easily support text message writing.

SMS today

6.1 billion (6.1 × 1012) text messages were sent in 2010. This translates to an average of 193,000 text messages per second. SMS has become a huge commercial industry, with worldwide revenues of $ 114.6 billion in 2010. The global average price for a text message is $ 0.11, while mobile networks charge each other. Interconnection of at least US $ 0.04 when connecting different phone networks.

In 2015, the actual cost of sending an SMS in Australia was set at $ 0.00016 per SMS.

In 2014, Caktus Group developed the world's first SMS-based voter registration system in Libya. To date, more than 1.5 million people have registered through that system, giving Libyan voters unprecedented access to the democratic process.

While SMS is still a growing market, traditional SMS is increasingly challenged by alternative messaging services such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Viber available on smartphones with data connections, especially in Western countries where these services are gaining popularity. Reportedly, more than 97% of smartphone owners use alternative messaging services at least once a day. Business text messaging, also known as application-to-peer messaging (A2P messaging) or two-way SMS, continues to grow steadily at a rate of 4% per year.

Enterprise SMS applications are primarily focused on CRM and deliver very specific service messages such as parcel delivery alerts, real-time notification of purchase confirmations for credit/debit cards to protect against fraud, and appointment confirmations. Another major source of the growing number of A2P messages is the two-step verification processes (also called 2-factor authentication) where users receive a unique passcode via SMS and then are asked to enter that passcode online to verify their identity.