Thursday, 4 August 2011

How SMS Works

By Christine Jackson


SMS, or Short Message Service, is the technology powering what we often refer to as 'text messages' or 'SMSes', in addition to what allows for news alerts on mobile phones. Lately SMS has ballooned to over a 50 billion dollar industry and it is quickly taking the communications world by storm.

Short Message Service actually refers to a framework that uniquely allows computers, or within this case phones, to communicate with one another without the require of a central hub. With SMS, phones can find one another, deliver short packets of information back and forth, and get it done all without any central computer to guide them. But because the system doesn't rely upon fixed lines like a land based telephone system does, the quantity of information that can be sent at one time is limited in size. This depends on the language spoken, but for English letters this typically means around 150 characters (Chinese and Japanese letters are restricted to 70).

Quite recently, however, new developments in the technology have allowed for even longer messages to be sent. Long or Concatenated SMS is a development that permits multiple messages to be combined to form a single message. In effect, what happens is that your phone actually sends out a couple of smaller sized messages after which the receiving phone simply compiles those messages to ensure that for users on both ends, it appears as though the message were cohesive. While there are some limitations, the brilliance behind SMS is that because there isn't any need for central hubs, and thus the system can be expanded indefinitely with out any concerns of it slowing down or becoming more costly.

Probably the most typical form of SMS is 'texting'. This usually takes place with a cellular phone in which people use the letters behind the number pad on their phone to spell out words and phrases and then send them out. Because many companies charge by the word, people have come up having a sort of 'texting slang' to cut down around the amount of words necessary to convey a specific message. For example, 'gr8' and 'BTW' mean 'great' and 'by the way'. In addition, other phrases have just been shortened, such as 'lata' to mean 'later'. Most users simply pick up the lingo through regular use, and even though some slang is widely understood and used, other shortcuts are developed within circles of family and friends.

The main advantage of SMS is its price. The price is typically $0.05 per message, a significant cut below that of traditional telephony and mobile phone per-minute charges. The cost savings of SMS has its roots in the nature with the technology. Brief Message Service, like SIP, is modeled on the peer to peer design and not a cog and wheel like traditional communication systems. This implies that instead of needing to route a message via a central hub, your text goes straight from you to its location. This has radically cut down on the price of SMS implementation and led to its overwhelming popularity throughout the world.

Short Message Service (SMS) has radically changed the face of the communications industry. While the practice is now quite common all throughout the whole world, it's only recently become well-liked here in the United Stats, a growth partly predicated upon, surprisingly enough, its featured role in the show American Idol. The fact that 'texting' is quickly gaining both in popularity and recognition within the USA isn't surprising however, due to its ability to offer customers a cheap, quick, and often fun method to talk with family and friends.




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