Short Message Services

The Short Message Service (SMS) is a basic service allowing the exchange of short text messages between subscribers. It is a message to or from a mobile phone. It was intended to be means of exchanging limited amounts of information between two mobile subscribers.

An SMS can carry up to 140 octets of text message. The final number of characters depends on the data coding schemes used for the next part of the message. The sender can send a text message to another subscriber, and the receiver may read the message at his or her own leisure.

The first short text message is believed to have been transferred in 1992 over signaling channels of a European GSM network. Since this successful trial, SMS, usage has been the subject of tremendous growth.

Developed as part of the GSM Phase 1 ETSI technical specifications, the Short Message Service (SMS) allows mobile stations and other network connected devices to exchange short text messages.

There are two forms of SMS: Short Message Service – Point to Point (SMS-PP) and Short Message Service – Cell Broadcast (SMS-CB).
Short Message Services