|
( Text messaging)
Text messaging, or texting is the common term for the sending of "short" (160 characters or fewer, including spaces, newer phones can hold up to 20 pages of 160 characters) text messages from mobile phones using the Short Message Service (SMS). It is available on most digital mobile phones and some personal digital assistants with on-board wireless telecommunications. The individual messages which are sent are called text messages or, more colloquially, texts or SMS. The most common application of the service is person-to-person messaging, but text messages are also often used to interact with automated systems, such as ordering products and services for mobile phones, or participating in contests. There are some services available on the Internet that allow users to send text messages free of direct charge to the sender. Many companies have claimed to have sent the very first text message but according to a former employee of NASA Edward Lantz, the first was sent via one simple 1989 Motorola beeper in 1989 by Raina Fortini from New York City to Melbourne Beach, Florida using upside down numbers that could be read as words and sounds. The first commercial SMS message was sent over the Vodafone GSM network in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1992, from Neil Papworth of Sema Group (using a personal computer) to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone (using an Orbitel 901 handset). The text of the message was "Merry Christmas". The first SMS typed on a GSM phone is claimed to have been sent by Riku Pihkonen, an engineer student at Nokia, in 1993. Initial growth of text messaging was slow, (since it was originally designed for the hearing impaired) with customers in 1995 sending on average only 0.4 messages per GSM customer per month.[1] One factor in the slow take-up 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. By the end of 2000, the average number of messages per user reached 35.[citation needed]
|
Text messaging Subcategories
Text messaging Articles
|
|
