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Short Message Service (SMS) is available on most digital mobile phones and a steadily increasing range of other devices (including Pocket PC, desktop computers and some fixed phones) that permit the sending of short text messages between these devices. The terms text messaging, text messages, more colloquially SMSes, texts, or even txts and its variants are more commonly used in North America, the UK, Spain and the Philippines, while most other countries prefer the term SMS.
HistoryAs with most other services and modules of functionality of the GSM system, no individual can claim to be the exclusive inventor of SMS.[citation needed] The idea of adding text messaging to the services of mobile users was latent in many communities of mobile communication services at the beginning of the 1980s. Experts from several of those communities contributed in the discussions on which should be the GSM services. Most thought of SMS as a means to alert the individual mobile user, e.g., an incoming voice mail, whereas others had more sophisticated applications in their minds, e.g. telemetry. However, few believed that SMS would be used as a means for sending text messages from one mobile user to another. As early as February 1985, after having already been discussed in GSM subgroup WP3, chaired by J. Audestad, SMS was considered in the main GSM group as a possible service for the new digital cellular system. In GSM document 'Services and Facilities to be provided in the GSM System' (GSM Doc 28/85 rev2, June 1985), both mobile originated and mobile terminated, including point-to-point and point-to-multipoint, short messages appear on the table of GSM teleservices. The discussions on the GSM services were then concluded in the recommendation GSM 02.03 'TeleServices supported by a GSM PLMN'. Here a rudimentary description of the three services was given: 1) Short message Mobile Terminated / Point-to-Point, 2) Short message Mobile Originated / Point-to-Point and 3) Short message Cell Broadcast. This was handed over to a new GSM body called IDEG (the Implementation of Data and Telematic Services Experts Group), which had its kickoff in May 1987 under the chairmanship of Friedhelm Hillebrand. The technical standard known today was largely created by IDEG (later WP4) as the two recommendations GSM 03.40 (the two point-to-point services merged together) and GSM 03.41 (cell broadcast).
Initial growth was slow, with customers in 1995 sending on average only 0.4 messages per GSM customer per month. [1] One factor in the slow takeup of SMS was that operators were slow to set up charging systems, especially for prepaid subscribers, and eliminate billing fraud which was possible by changing SMSC settings on individual handsets to use the SMSCs of other operators. Over time, this issue was eliminated by switch-billing instead of billing at the SMSC and by new features within SMSCs to allow blocking of foreign mobile users sending messages through it. An example of a company that innovate in this subject is OsinetS.A.. By the end of 2000, the average number of messages per user reached 35. It is also alleged that the fact that roaming customers, in the early days, rarely received bills for their SMSs after holidays abroad had a boost on text messaging as an alternative to voice calls. SMS was originally designed as part of GSM, but is now available on a wide range of networks, including 3G networks. However, not all text messaging systems use SMS, and some notable alternate implementations of the concept include J-Phone's SkyMail and NTT Docomo's Short Mail, both in Japan. E-mail messaging from phones, as popularized by NTT Docomo's i-mode and the RIM BlackBerry, also typically use standard mail protocols such as SMTP over TCP/IP. Technical detailsThe Short Message Service - Point to Point (SMS-PP) is defined in GSM recommendation 03.40. GSM 03.41 defines the Short Message Service - Cell Broadcast (SMS-CB) which allows messages (advertising, public information, etc.) to be broadcast to all mobile users in a specified geographical area. Messages are sent to a Short Message Service Centre (SMSC) which provides a store-and-forward mechanism. It attempts to send messages to their recipients. If a recipient is not reachable, the SMSC queues the message for later retry. Some SMSCs also provide a "forward and forget" option where transmission is tried only once. Both Mobile Terminated (MT), for messages sent to a mobile handset, and Mobile Originating (MO), for those that are sent from the mobile handset, operations are supported. Message delivery is best effort, so there are no guarantees that a message will actually be delivered to its recipient and delay or complete loss of a message is not uncommon, particularly when sending between networks. Users may choose to request delivery reports, which can provide positive confirmation that the message has reached the intended recipient, but notifications for failed deliveries are unreliable at best. Transmission of the short messages between SMSC and phone can be done through different protocols such as SS7 within the standard GSM MAP framework or TCP/IP within the same standard. Messages are sent with the additional MAP operation forward_short_message, whose payload length is limited by the constraints of the signalling protocol to precisely 140 bytes (140 bytes = 140 * 8 bits = 1120 bits). In practice, this translates to either 160 7-bit characters, 140 8-bit characters, or 70 16-bit characters. Characters in languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Slavic languages (e.g. Russian) must be encoded using the 16-bit UCS-2 character encoding (see Unicode). Routing data and other metadata is additional to the payload size. Larger content (known as long SMS or concatenated SMS) can be sent segmented over multiple messages, in which case each message will start with a user data header (UDH) containing segmentation information. Since UDH is inside the payload, the number of characters per segment is lower: 153 for 7-bit encoding, 134 for 8-bit encoding and 67 for 16-bit encoding. The receiving phone is then responsible for reassembling the message and presenting it to the user as one long message. While the standard theoretically permits up to 255 segments, 6 to 8 segment messages are the practical maximum, and long messages are billed as equivalent to multiple SMS messages. Short messages can also be used to send binary content such as ringtones or logos, as well as OTA programming or configuration data. Such uses are a vendor-specific extension of the GSM specification and there are multiple competing standards, although Nokia's Smart Messaging is by far the most common. The SMS specification has defined a way for an external Terminal Equipment, such as a PC or Pocket PC, to control the SMS functions of a mobile phone. The connection between the Terminal Equipment and the mobile phone can be realized with a serial cable, a Bluetooth link, an infrared link, etc. The interface protocol is based on AT commands. Common AT commands include AT+CMGS (send message), AT+CMSS (send message from storage), AT+CMGL (list messages) and AT+CMGR (read message). Some service providers offer the ability to send messages to land line telephones regardless of their capability of receiving text messages by automatically phoning the recipient and reading the message aloud using a speech synthesizer along with the number of the sender. Today, SMS is also used for machine to machine communication. For instance, there is an LED display machine controlled by SMS, and some vehicle tracking companies like ESITrack use SMS for their data transport or telemetry needs. SMS usage for these purposes are slowly being superseded by GPRS services due to their lower overall costs. Premium contentSMS is widely used for delivering digital content such as news alerts, financial information, logos and ringtones. Such messages are also known as premium-rated short messages (PSMS). The subscribers are charged extra for receiving this premium content, and the amount is typically divided between the mobile network operator and the value added service provider (VASP) either through revenue share or a fixed transport fee. Premium short messages are increasingly being used for "real-world" services. For example, some vending machines now allow payment by sending a premium-rated short message, so that the cost of the item bought is added to the user's phone bill or subtracted from the user's prepaid credits. Recently, premium messaging companies have come under fire from consumer groups due to a large number of consumers racking up huge phone bills. Some mobile networks, now require users to call their provider to enable premium messages from reaching their handset. A new type of 'free premium' or 'hybrid premium' content has emerged with the launch of text-service websites. These sites allow registered users to receive free text messages when items they are interested go on sale, or when new items are introduced. PopularityImage:Texting in traffic.jpg SMS services are popular in part due to their ubiquity. Short message services are developing very rapidly throughout the world. In 2000, just 17 billion SMS messages were sent; in 2001, the number was up to 250 billion, and 500 billion SMS messages in 2004. At an average cost of USD 0.10 per message, this generates revenues in excess of $50 billion for mobile telephone operators and represents close to 100 text messages for every person in the world. SMS is particularly popular in Europe, Asia (excluding Japan; see below), Australia and New Zealand. Popularity has grown to a sufficient extent that the term texting (used as a verb meaning the act of mobile phone users sending short messages back and forth) has entered the common lexicon. In China, SMS is very popular, and has brought service providers significant profit (18 billion short messages were sent in 2001 [2]). It is a very influential and powerful tool in the Philippines, where the average user sends 10-12 text messages a day. The Philippines alone sends on the average 400 million text messages a day, more than the annual average SMS volume of countries in Europe, and even China. SMS is hugely popular in India, where youngsters often exchange lots of text messages, and companies provide alerts, infotainment, news, cricket scores update, railway/airline booking, mobile billing, and banking services on SMS. In India, metropolitan media outlets often take real-time polls and audience opinion through SMS, via reserved 4-digit numbers that redirect the information to the respective aforementioned outlets based on designated prefix codes. Short messages are particularly popular amongst young urbanites. In many markets, the service is comparatively cheap. For example, in Australia a message typically costs between AUD 0.20 and AUD 0.25 to send (some pre-paid services charge AUD 0.01 between their own phones), compared with a voice call, which costs somewhere between AUD 0.40 and AUD 2.00 per minute (commonly charged in half-minute blocks). Despite the low cost to the consumer, the service is enormously profitable to the service providers. At a typical length of only 190 bytes (incl. protocol overhead), more than 350 of these messages per minute can be transmitted at the same data rate as a usual voice call (9 kbit/s). Text messaging has become so popular that advertising agencies and advertisers are now jumping into the text message business. Services that provide bulk text message sending are also becoming a popular way for clubs, associations, and advertisers to quickly reach a group of opt-in subscribers. This advertising has proven to be extremely effective, but some insiders worry that advertisers may abuse the power of mobile marketing and it will someday be considered spam. EuropeEurope follows next behind Asia in terms of the popularity of the use of SMS. In 2003, an average of 16 billion messages were sent each month. Users in Spain sent a little more than fifty messages per month on average in 2003. In Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom the figure was around 35–40 SMS messages per month. In each of these countries the cost of sending an SMS message varies from as little as £0.03–£0.18 depending on the payment plan. Curiously France has not taken to SMS in the same way, sending just under 20 messages on average per user per month. France has the same GSM technology as other European countries so the uptake is not hampered by technical restrictions. In Ireland, a total of 1.5 billion messages are sent every quarter, on average 114 messages per person per month. [3] The Eurovision Song Contest organized the first pan-European SMS-voting in 2002, as a part of the voting system (there was also a voting over traditional phone lines). In 2005, the Eurovision Song Contest organized the biggest televoting ever (with SMS and phone voting). United StatesIn the United States, however, the appeal of SMS is more limited. Although an SMS message usually costs only US$0.15 (many providers also offer monthly text messaging plans), only 13 messages were sent by the average user per month in 2003. In the US, SMS is often charged both at the sender and at the destination, but it cannot be rejected or dismissed, as opposed to the phone calls. The reasons for this are varied—many users have unlimited "mobile-to-mobile" minutes, high monthly minute allotments, or unlimited service. Moreover, push to talk services offer the instant connectivity of SMS and are typically unlimited. Furthermore, the integration between competing providers and technologies necessary for cross-network text messaging has only been available recently. Some providers originally charged extra to enable use of text, further reducing its usefulness and appeal. The relative popularity of e-mail-based devices such as the BlackBerry in North America may be a response to the weakness of text messaging there, but these further weaken the appeal of texting among the users most likely to use it. However the recent addition of Cingular-powered SMS voting on the television program American Idol has introduced many Americans to SMS, and usage is on the rise.[citation needed]In the third quarter last year (2006), more than 10 billion text messages crossed Cingular's network, up almost 15 percent from the preceding quarter. FinlandIn addition to SMS voting, a different phenomenon has risen in more mobile-phone-saturated countries. In Finland some TV channels began "SMS chat", which involved sending short messages to a phone number, and the messages would be shown on TV a while later. Chats are always moderated, which prevents sending harmful material to the channel. The craze soon became popular and evolved into games, first slow-paced quiz and strategy games. After a while, faster paced games were designed for television and SMS control. Games tend to involve registering one's nickname, and after that sending short messages for controlling a character on screen. Messages usually cost 0.05 to 0.86 Euro apiece, and games can require the player to send dozens of messages. In December 2003, a Finnish TV-channel, MTV3, put a Santa character on air reading aloud messages sent in by viewers. More recent late-night attractions on the same channel include "Beach Volley", in which the bikini-clad female hostess blocks balls "shot" by short message. On March 12 2004, the first entirely "interactive" TV-channel "VIISI" began operation in Finland. That did not last long though, as SBS Finland Oy took over the channel and turned it into a music channel named "The Voice" in November 2004. In 2006, the Prime Minister of Finland, Matti Vanhanen, made front page news when he allegedly broke up with his girlfriend with a text message. In 2007, the first text message only book, which is about a business executive who travels throughout Europe and India, was published by a Finnish author. JapanJapan was among the first countries to widely adopt short messages, with pioneering non-GSM services including J-Phone's SkyMail and NTT Docomo's Short Mail. However, short messaging has been largely rendered obsolete by the prevalence of mobile Internet e-mail, which can be sent to and received from any e-mail address, mobile or otherwise. That said, while usually presented to the user simply as a uniform "mail" service (and most users are unaware of the distinction), the operators may still internally transmit the content as short messages, especially if the destination is on the same network. Morse codeA few widely publicised speed contests have been held between expert Morse code operators and expert SMS users (see references). Several mobile phones have Morse code ring tones and alert messages. For example, many Nokia mobile phones have an option to beep "S M S" in Morse code when it receives a short message. Some of these phones could also play the Nokia slogan "Connecting people" in morse code as a message tone[citation needed]. There are third-party applications available for some mobile phones that allow Morse input for short messages (see references). SpamIn 2002, an increasing trend towards spamming mobile phone users through SMS prompted cellular service carriers to take steps against the practice, before it became a widespread problem. No major spamming incidents involving SMS had been reported as of March 2007, but the existence of mobile-phone spam has been noted by industry watchdogs, including Consumer Reports magazine and the Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN). In 2005, UCAN brought a case against Sprint for spamming its customers and charging $0.10 per text message [4]. The case was settled in 2006 with Sprint agreeing not to send customers Sprint advertisements via SMS[5]. SMS expert LogicaCMG reported a new type of SMS-malice at the end of 2006, noting the first instances of SMiShing (a cousin to email phishing scams). In SMiShing, users receive SMS messages posing to be from a company, enticing users to phone premium rate numbers, or reply with personal information. UtilitySMS has also given people instant access to a wealth of information. Services like 82ASK and Any Question Answered in the UK have used the SMS model to enable rapid response to mobile consumers' questions, using on-call teams of experts and researchers. Text speak
Historically, this language developed out of shorthand used in Bulletin Board Systems and later in internet chatrooms, where users would abbreviate some words to allow a response to be typed more quickly. However, this became much more pronounced in SMS, where mobile phone users don't generally have access to a QWERTY keyboard as computer users did, more effort is required to type each character, and there is a limit on the number of characters that may be sent. In Mandarin Chinese, numbers that sound similar to words are used in place of those words. For example, the numbers 520 in Chinese ("wu er ling") sound like the words for "I love you" ("wo ai ni"). The sequence 748 ("qi si ba") sounds like the curse for "drop dead". Predictive text software that attempts to guess words (AOL/Tegic's T9 as well as iTAP) or letters (Eatoni's LetterWise) reduces the labour of time-consuming input. This makes abbreviations not only less necessary, but slower to type than regular words which are in the software's dictionary. However it does make the messages longer, often requiring the text message to be sent in multiple parts and therefore costing more to send. Website portals such as transl8it have supported a community of users to help standardize this text speak by allowing users to submit translations, staking claim with their user handle, or to submit top messages and guess the lingo phrases. The international popularity of this portal resulted in late 2005 the publishing of the transl8it! dxNRE & glosRE (dictionary & glossary) as the worlds first, and most complete, SMS and text lingo book. Social impact of SMSSMS has caused subtle but interesting changes in society and language since it became popular. News-worthy events include (in chronological order): Academic impact
Criminal impact
Political impact
Social development
Vulnerabilities
See also
References
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