A Brief Background On SMS

Short Message Service (SMS) is one of the services provided to phone, web, or mobile communication systems users that involves sending and receiving short texts, by the use of standard communications protocols. SMS text messaging is seen being used popularly around the world. There are about 2.4 billion active users of this data application in the world which constitute 74% of the total mobile phone subscribers. Not surprisingly, the term SMS has grown so much in terms of usage that it is used as a synonym for almost all kinds of short text messaging in great many parts of the world. Modern handsets are apparently incomplete without the SMS service feature. The origin of SMS can be traced back to radio telegraphy in radio memo pagers using standardized phone protocols. For the record, SMS was afterwards redefined as part of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) series of standards in 1985 as a means of sending messages of up to 160 characters, to and from GSM mobile handsets. Eventually, other mobile technologies such as ANSI CDMA networks and Digital AMPS, as well as satellite and landline networks were seen to accommodate support for the service. Majority of the SMS services are confined to mobile-to-mobile text messages however, support for the standard is available in other types of broadcast messaging. 4.1 trillion SMS text messages were recorded to have been sent in the year 2008 alone. Over time, the SMS services have grown so much that it has become a massive commercial industry, worth over $81bn in the whole world as of 2006. The global average price for a SMS message stands at 0.11 USD, while mobile networks charge each other interconnect fees of at least $0.04US when connecting between different phone networks. free SMS service is another trend being witnessed all over the world. Users are able to send free SMS anywhere in India and sometimes beyond India.