{"id":15507,"date":"2022-02-21T12:12:08","date_gmt":"2022-02-21T12:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/02\/21\/what-is-sms-and-why-are-text-messages-so-short\/"},"modified":"2022-02-21T12:12:08","modified_gmt":"2022-02-21T12:12:08","slug":"what-is-sms-and-why-are-text-messages-so-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/02\/21\/what-is-sms-and-why-are-text-messages-so-short\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is SMS, and Why Are Text Messages So Short?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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kyrien\/Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

30 years ago, SMS (Simple Message Service) introduced the world to cellular text messaging, 160 characters at a time. How did it get that way\u2014and what happens if we have more to say? We\u2019ll explore the history and origins of SMS.<\/p>\n

SMS: Born in Europe<\/h2>\n

SMS originated in 1984, initially conceived by Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert (a German-French collaboration) while working as part of the ETSI<\/a> group that was developing a new digital cell phone standard called GSM<\/a> (Global System for Mobile Communications).<\/p>\n

Hillebrand came up with the idea of allowing short digital text messages through the upcoming GSM cell phone network. To be economical, this message service would utilize previously unused space in a control link radio channel that typically only held information about signal strength and incoming calls. The GSM development group imagined<\/a> SMS being used with existing radio message terminals, car-based mobile stations, and future handheld devices.<\/p>\n

\"The
An Orbitel 901 phone sent the world\u2019s first official SMS message in 1992. Orbitel<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2009, the L.A. Times reported<\/a> that initially the engineers could only squeeze 128 characters into the 140 bytes of free room in the control link channel, but they found that by using 7-bit text encoding, they could fit 160 characters maximum. After some experiments conducted by Hillebrand where he analyzed the length of postcards and Telex<\/a> messages\u2014then typed out short messages and counted the characters\u2014he convinced others that 160 characters would be sufficient for SMS.<\/p>\n

Official work on SMS within GSM began in 1985, with a draft of the standard complete by 1987, and the technology was made freely available to the world. The first official<\/a> SMS text message transmission took place on December 3, 1992 when Sema Group<\/a> test engineer Neil Papworth sent \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d to a colleague named Richard Jarvis using an Orbitel 901<\/a> mobile phone.<\/p>\n

From those two people and one message in 1992, SMS usage has grown to staggering proportions. In 2020, U.S. cell phone customers alone sent 2.2 trillion<\/a> SMS and MMS messages, and reportedly about 4<\/a> to 5<\/a> billion people send and receive text messages worldwide, according to varying sources. In other words, a large majority of humans on earth can use SMS for communications.<\/p>\n

The Cultural Impact of SMS<\/h2>\n

Originally, texting on a mobile phone was a slow and cumbersome process, with each number key on the cell phone keypad representing up to three letters. This led to a proliferation of texting abbreviations<\/a> such as OMW<\/a>, G2G<\/a>, and IDK<\/a> that now permeate our online culture.<\/p>\n

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