Technology admin  

SMS 101 – Short Message Service Explanation

Short Message Service (SMS) is a quick and easy way to communicate short messages via mobile phones, handheld devices, and increasingly even landlines. Commonly known as texting, SMS, or even texting, the practice has spread rapidly around the world, evidenced by the fact that 500 billion such messages were sent in the last year alone. The practice has its popularity due in large part to its convenience and cost effectiveness. For example, a typical text message placed in the US at $ 0.05 per message is priced between 10% and 20% of that of a voice call. These savings have made it the most popular form of communication in many countries, and the practice is rapidly gaining popularity in the United States as well.

This rapid increase in the use of SMS by Americans is due in part to the publicity the practice received through television shows such as The American Idol, where viewers ‘texted’ their votes in favor of your favourite singer. This initial exposure gave many Americans their first taste of the convenience and ease of use of SMS.

Sending text messages involves using the keyboard of a phone or other device to spell letters and then words. Then when a message is complete, the writer sends the message, just like an instant message or email to the recipient. While some devices now have real qwerty keyboards, the vast majority of SMS-capable phones and devices simply use the 12-key (0-9 plus * and #) number pad. Pressing a certain key in rapid succession forms different letters. For example, pressing the ‘1’ key once produces the letter ‘a’. Pressing it twice gives the letter ‘b’, while three times gives ‘c’. The other numbers (2-9) work the same way, while the other keys (*, 0, and #) are generally reserved for creating spaces and punctuation. While texting takes a bit of initial practice, in a few minutes users can spell and send short messages quickly.

Most SMS services, such as those transmitted to a phone, have a limit on the number of characters that can be transmitted per message. This number can vary from service to service, however many allow 140 or 160 characters. This limitation has caused users to develop what is known as Txt Speak. It is a set of commonly used abbreviations and word substitutes that not only reduce the number of characters required to convey a word or message, but also make sending SMS or text messaging an even faster process. and convenient. For example, the number ‘4’ is commonly used to replace the word ‘for’ and ‘gr8’ replaces the word ‘great’. Some people also choose to omit spaces between words by using uppercase letters, such as ‘TextingIsFun’ instead of ‘TextingIsFun’. A relatively new phenomenon that many texting devices are now incorporating is predictive text software. This gives your phone the technology to anticipate what word to type before you even finish typing, dramatically reducing the time it takes to send text messages. For example, you can type the letters ‘ste’ and the software, which is built into the device, will have predicted the word ‘stereo’ for you.

SMS is a technology whose convenience and cost effectiveness have already made it an integral part of communication in many countries. In recent years, it has become more widely advertised in the United States, and as a consequence, its popularity is increasing rapidly. However, this growth is not surprising given the many benefits that Short Message Service (SMS) brings to communication.

Leave A Comment