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Unstructured Supplementary Service Data ( USSD ), sometimes referred to as " quick codes " or " feature codes ", is a communications protocol used by GSM cellular telephones to communicate with the mobile network operator 's computers. USSD can be used for WAP browsing, prepaid callback service, mobile-money services, location-based content services, menu-based information services, and as part of configuring the phone on the network. The service does not require a messaging app, and does not incur charges.

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79-437: USSD messages are up to 182 alphanumeric characters long. Unlike short message service (SMS) messages, USSD messages create a real-time connection during a USSD session. The connection remains open, allowing a two-way exchange of a sequence of data. This makes USSD faster than services that use SMS. While GSM is being phased out in the 2020s with 2G and 3G technologies, USSD services can be supported over LTE, 5G, and IMS. When

158-465: A callback service (to reduce phone charges while roaming), enhance mobile marketing capabilities or interactive data services. USSD is commonly used by prepaid GSM cellular phones to query the available balance. The vendor's "check balance" application hides the details of the USSD protocol from the user. On some pay as you go networks, such as Tesco Mobile , once a user performs an action that costs money,

237-414: A business phone number (traditional landline) and receive a SMS in return. Providing customers with the ability to text to a phone number allows organizations to offer new services that deliver value. Examples include chat bots, and text enabled customer service and call centers. A Flash SMS is a type of SMS that appears directly on the main screen without user interaction and is not automatically stored in

316-466: A confirmation of receipt from the target device, and users are often not informed of the specific type of success being reported. SMS is a stateless communication protocol in which every SMS message is considered entirely independent of other messages. Enterprise applications using SMS as a communication channel for stateful dialogue (where an MO reply message is paired to a specific MT message) requires that session management be maintained external to

395-506: A corresponding command (not the code itself) is sent to the network. These codes might not always work when using an AT interface; there are standard AT commands defined for each of these actions instead. BS is the type of bearer service, some valid values are: T is number of seconds for the No Reply Condition Timer, default is 20 seconds if not specified. SMS Short Message Service , commonly abbreviated as SMS ,

474-523: A donation to charity, and much more. Additionally, an intermediary service can facilitate a text-to-voice conversion to be sent to landlines . In 2014, Caktus Group developed the world's first SMS-based voter registration system in Libya. As of February 2015 more than 1.5 million people have registered using that system, providing Libyan voters with unprecedented access to the democratic process. SMS enablement allows individuals to send an SMS message to

553-419: A handheld supplement to bulkier laptops . During the same period, the mobile phone evolved from supporting voice communication only to accommodating text messaging , Internet connectivity, multimedia, and videotelephony . These feature phones eventually gave way to the modern smartphone , which combined all the aforementioned devices, and more, into one device. Since the late 2000s, smartphones have been

632-418: A hash symbol (#) and is terminated with a hash symbol (#). A typical message comprises digits for commands or data; groups of digits may be separated by additional asterisks. Mobile-initiated Network-initiated The codes below are not USSD codes , these are the related Man-Machine Interface (MMI); they are standardized so they are the same on every GSM phone. They are interpreted by the handset first before

711-439: A large base of SMS-capable terminals and networks existed when people began to use SMS. A new network element required was a specialized short message service centre, and enhancements were required to the radio capacity and network transport infrastructure to accommodate growing SMS traffic. The technical development of SMS was a multinational collaboration supporting the framework of standards bodies. Through these organizations

790-547: A leading role. Besides the completion of the main specification GSM 03.40 , the detailed protocol specifications on the system interfaces also needed to be completed. The first SMS message was sent over the Vodafone GSM network in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1992, from Neil Papworth of Sema Group (now Mavenir Systems ) using a personal computer to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone using an Orbitel 901 handset. The text of

869-496: A message will actually be delivered to its recipient, but delay or complete loss of a message is uncommon, typically affecting less than 5 percent of messages. Some providers allow users to request delivery reports, either via the SMS settings of most modern phones, or by prefixing each message with *0# or *N#. However, the exact meaning of confirmations varies from reaching the network, to being queued for sending, to being sent, to receiving

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948-638: A mobile host, e.g., a smartphone can be carried in a bag or pocket but can easily be misplaced. Hence, mobile hosts with embedded devices such as an autonomous vehicle can appear larger than pocket-sized. The most common size of a mobile computing device is pocket-sized, but other sizes for mobile devices exist. Mark Weiser , known as the father of ubiquitous computing , referred to device sizes that are tab-sized, pad, and board sized, where tabs are defined as accompanied or wearable centimeter-sized devices, e.g. smartphones , phablets and tablets are defined as hand-held decimeter-sized devices. If one changes

1027-545: A new GSM body called IDEG (the Implementation of Data and Telematic Services Experts Group), which had its kickoff in May 1987 under the chairmanship of Friedhelm Hillebrand (German Telecom). The technical standard known today was largely created by IDEG (later WP4) as the two recommendations GSM 03.40 (the two point-to-point services merged) and GSM 03.41 (cell broadcast). WP4 created a Drafting Group Message Handling (DGMH), which

1106-465: A person and thus to create a complete movement profile. They do not show up on a display, nor trigger any acoustical signal when received. Their primary purpose was to deliver special services of the network operator to any cell phone. In March 2001, Dutch police in Amsterdam attempted to fight increasing cell phone theft by sending an SMS every three minutes to a phone that has been reported stolen, with

1185-450: A phone. However, longer messages may be broken up into multiple texts, depending upon the telephone service provider. Text-enabled fixed-line handsets are required to receive messages in text format. However, messages can be delivered to non enabled phones using text-to-speech conversion . Short messages can send binary content such as ringtones or logos, as well as Over-the-air programming (OTA) or configuration data. Such uses are

1264-463: A specified geographical area. Cell broadcast is the technology behind Wireless Emergency Alerts in the US which is used for public safety messages and AMBER alerts, and similar public safety messages in other countries . These messages are similar to SMS messages. Messages are sent to a short message service center (SMSC), which provides a " store and forward " mechanism. It attempts to send messages to

1343-447: A user sends a message to the phone company network, it is received by a computer dedicated to USSD. The computer's response is sent back to the phone, generally in a basic format that can easily be seen on the phone display. Messages sent over USSD are not defined by any standardization body, so each network operator can implement whatever is most suitable for its customers. USSD can be used to provide independent calling services such as

1422-601: A variety of alphabets: the default GSM 7-bit alphabet , the 8-bit data alphabet , and the 16-bit UCS-2 or UTF-16 alphabets. Depending on which alphabet the subscriber has configured in the handset, this leads to the maximum individual short message sizes of 160 7- bit characters, 140 8-bit characters, or 70 16-bit characters. GSM 7-bit alphabet support is mandatory for GSM handsets and network elements, but characters in languages such as Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, or Cyrillic alphabet languages (e.g., Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Bulgarian, etc.) must be encoded using

1501-524: A vendor-specific extension of the GSM specification and there are multiple competing standards, although Nokia 's Smart Messaging is common. SMS is used for M2M ( Machine to Machine ) communication. For instance, there is an LED display machine controlled by SMS, and some vehicle tracking companies use SMS for their data transport or telemetry needs. SMS usage for these purposes is slowly being superseded by GPRS services owing to their lower overall cost. GPRS

1580-484: Is US$ 0.11, while mobile networks charge each other interconnect fees of at least US$ 0.04 when connecting between different phone networks. In 2015, the actual cost of sending an SMS in Australia was found to be $ 0.00016 per SMS. The global SMS messaging business was estimated to be worth over US$ 240 billion in 2013, accounting for almost half of all revenue generated by mobile messaging. The popularity of SMS also led to

1659-556: Is a computer small enough to hold and operate in hand. Mobile devices are typically battery-powered and possess a flat-panel display and one or more built-in input devices , such as a touchscreen or keypad . Modern mobile devices often emphasize wireless networking , to both the Internet and to other devices in their vicinity, such as headsets or in-car entertainment systems, via Wi-Fi , Bluetooth , cellular networks , or near-field communication . Device mobility can be viewed in

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1738-494: Is a text messaging service component of most telephone , Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, typically transmitted over cellular networks . Developed as part of the GSM standards, and based on the SS7 signalling protocol, SMS rolled out on digital cellular networks starting in 1993 and

1817-499: Is based on multiple agreements with mobile carriers to exchange two-way SMS traffic into and out of the operator's SMSC , also known as "local termination model". Aggregators lack direct access into the SS7 protocol, which is the protocol where the SMS messages are exchanged. SMS messages are delivered to the operator's SMSC, but not the subscriber's handset; the SMSC takes care of further handling of

1896-628: Is lower: 153 for 7-bit encoding, 134 for 8-bit encoding and 67 for 16-bit encoding. The receiving handset is then responsible for reassembling the message and presenting it to the user as one long message. While the standard theoretically permits up to 255 segments, 10 segments is the practical maximum with some carriers, and long messages are often billed as equivalent to multiple SMS messages. In some cases 127 segments are supported, but software limitations in some SMS applications do not permit this. Some providers have offered length-oriented pricing schemes for messages, although that type of pricing structure

1975-503: Is offered by smaller telco players as a route of sending SMS text to reduce the cost of SMS texting internationally. The Mobile Application Part (MAP) of the SS7 protocol included support for the transport of Short Messages through the Core Network from its inception. MAP Phase 2 expanded support for SMS by introducing a separate operation code for Mobile Terminated Short Message transport. Since Phase 2, there have been no changes to

2054-461: Is often regarded as synonymous with having wireless connectivity, these terms are different. Not all network access by mobile users, applications, and devices needs to be via wireless networks and vice versa. Wireless access devices can be static and mobile users can move between wired and wireless hotspots such as in Internet cafés. Some mobile devices can be used as mobile Internet devices to access

2133-418: Is optimized for telephony, since this was identified as its main application. The key idea for SMS was to use this telephone-optimized system, and to transport messages on the signalling paths needed to control the telephone traffic during periods when no signalling traffic existed. In this way, unused resources in the system could be used to transport messages at minimal cost. However, it was necessary to limit

2212-415: Is rapidly disappearing. SMS gateway providers facilitate SMS traffic between businesses and mobile subscribers, including SMS for enterprises, content delivery, and entertainment services involving SMS, e.g. TV voting. Considering SMS messaging performance and cost, as well as the level of messaging services, SMS gateway providers can be classified as aggregators or SS7 providers. The aggregator model

2291-402: Is sometimes used in conjunction with SMS. The user sends a request to the network via USSD, and the network replies with an acknowledgement of receipt: Subsequently, one or more mobile terminated SMS messages communicate the status and/or results of the initial request. In such cases, SMS is used to "push" a reply or updates to the handset when the network is ready to send them. In contrast, USSD

2370-506: Is that, in America, talk is cheap. Because local calls on land lines are usually free, wireless operators have to offer big “bundles” of minutes—up to 5,000 minutes per month—as part of their monthly pricing plans to persuade subscribers to use mobile phones instead. Texting first took off in other parts of the world among cost-conscious teenagers who found that it was cheaper to text than to call [..] Free local calls also make logging on to

2449-415: Is used for command-and-control only. Most GSM phones have USSD capability. USSD is generally associated with real-time or instant messaging services. An SMSC is not present in the processing path, so that the store-and-forward capability supported by other short-message protocols such as SMS is not available. USSD Phase 1, as specified in GSM 02.90, only supports mobile-initiated ("pull") operations. In

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2528-582: The Nokia 2010 , which was released in January 1994, was the first mobile phone to support composing SMSes easily. Initial growth was slow, with customers in 1995 sending on average only 0.4 messages per GSM customer per month. Initially, networks in the UK only allowed customers to send messages to other users on the same network , limiting the usefulness of the service. This restriction was lifted in 1999. Over time, this issue

2607-531: The Philippines by 2001 and the country was dubbed the "texting capital of the world", partly helped by large numbers of free text messages offered by the mobile operators in monthly subscriptions. SMS adoption was limited to parts of Europe and Asia during these earlier years, with U.S. adoption being low partly due to incompatible networks and cheap voice calls relative to other countries. The Economist wrote in 2003, as noted by an analyst: The short answer

2686-467: The Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) or PSTN via Interworking and Gateway MSCs . Subscriber-originated messages are transported from a handset to a service center, and may be destined for mobile users, subscribers on a fixed network, or Value-Added Service Providers (VASPs) , also known as application-terminated. Subscriber-terminated messages are transported from the service center to

2765-581: The RIM BlackBerry , also typically uses standard mail protocols such as SMTP over TCP/IP . The Short Message Service—Point to Point (SMS-PP) —was originally defined in GSM recommendation 03.40, which is now maintained in 3GPP as TS 23.040. GSM 03.41 (now 3GPP TS 23.041) defines the Short Message Service—Cell Broadcast (SMS-CB) , which allows messages (advertising, public information, etc.) to be broadcast to all mobile users in

2844-533: The core network , the message is delivered over MAP , USSD Phase 2, as specified in GSM 03.90. After entering a USSD code on a GSM handset, the reply from the GSM operator is displayed within a few seconds. While GSM is being phased out in the 2020s with 2G and 3G , a solution is available for supporting USSD services directly from the LTE / 5G / IMS network, providing a similar user experience as in GSM. A USSD message typically starts with an asterisk symbol (*) or

2923-434: The 16-bit UCS-2 character encoding (see Unicode ). Routing data and other metadata is additional to the payload size. Larger content ( concatenated SMS , multipart or segmented SMS, or "long SMS") can be sent using multiple messages, in which case each message will start with a User Data Header (UDH) containing segmentation information. Since UDH is part of the payload, the number of available characters per segment

3002-441: The 21st-century, mobile phone providers began making television available on cellular phones. In the 2010s, mobile devices were observed to frequently include the ability to sync and share a variety of data despite the distance or specifications of the devices. In the medical field, mobile devices are quickly becoming essential tools for accessing clinical information such as drugs, treatment, and even medical calculations. Due to

3081-505: The GSM System, " both mobile-originated and mobile-terminated short messages appear on the table of GSM teleservices. The discussions on the GSM services were concluded in the recommendation GSM 02.03 " TeleServices supported by a GSM PLMN . " Here a rudimentary description of the three services was given: The material elaborated in GSM and its WP1 subgroup was handed over in Spring 1987 to

3160-689: The Global System for Mobile Communications ( GSM ) series of standards. The first SMS message was sent on 3 December 1992, when Neil Papworth , a test engineer for Sema Group , sent "Merry Christmas" to the Orbitel 901 phone of colleague Richard Jarvis. Adding text messaging functionality to mobile devices began in the early 1980s. The first action plan of the CEPT Group GSM was approved in December 1982, requesting that "The services and facilities offered in

3239-503: The Internet while moving, but they do not need to do this and many phone functions or applications are still operational even while disconnected from the Internet . What makes the mobile device unique compared to other technologies is the inherent flexibility in the hardware and software. Flexible applications include video chat, web browsing, payment systems, near field communication, audio recording etc. As mobile devices become ubiquitous, there will be an increase of services which include

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3318-700: The Mobile Terminated service. CAMEL allows the gsmSCP to block the submission (MO) or delivery (MT) of Short Messages, route messages to destinations other than that specified by the user, and perform real-time billing for the use of the service. Prior to standardized CAMEL control of the Short Message Service, IN control relied on switch vendor specific extensions to the Intelligent Network Application Part (INAP) of SS7. Mobile device A mobile device or handheld device

3397-428: The SMSC's recipients. If a recipient is not reachable, the SMSC queues the message for later retry. Some SMSCs also provide a "forward and forget" option where transmission is tried only once. Both mobile terminated (MT, for messages sent to a mobile handset) and mobile originating (MO, for those sent from the mobile handset) operations are supported. Message delivery is " best effort ", so there are no guarantees that

3476-579: The SMSCs of other mobile operators. Therefore, it is possible to avoid delays and message losses, offering full delivery guarantees of messages and optimized routing. This model is particularly efficient when used in mission-critical messaging and SMS used in corporate communications. Moreover, these SMS gateway providers are providing branded SMS services with masking but after misuse of these gateways most countries' governments have taken serious steps to block these gateways. Message Service Centers communicate with

3555-555: The Short Message Service". Responsible editor was Finn Trosby. The first and very rudimentary draft of the technical specification was completed in November 1987. However, drafts useful for the manufacturers followed at a later stage in the period. A comprehensive description of the work in this period is given in. The work on the draft specification continued in the following few years, where Kevin Holley of Cellnet (now Telefónica O2 UK) played

3634-705: The Short Message operation packages in MAP, although other operation packages have been enhanced to support CAMEL SMS control. From 3GPP Releases 99 and 4 onwards, CAMEL Phase 3 introduced the ability for the Intelligent Network (IN) to control aspects of the Mobile Originated Short Message Service, while CAMEL Phase 4, as part of 3GPP Release 5 and onwards, provides the IN with the ability to control

3713-459: The United States at the time (see digital divide ), hence making SMS more accessible. SMS has become a large commercial industry, earning $ 114.6 billion globally in 2010. In the year 2002, 366 billion SMS text messages were sent globally, a number that rose to 6.1 trillion (6.1 × 10 ) in 2010, which is an average of 193,000 messages per second. The global average price for an SMS message

3792-495: The context of several qualities: Strictly speaking, many so-called mobile devices are not mobile. It is the host that is mobile, i.e., a mobile human host carries a non-mobile smartphone device. An example of a true mobile computing device, where the device itself is mobile, is a robot . Another example is an autonomous vehicle . There are three basic ways mobile devices can be physically bound to mobile hosts: Accompanied refers to an object being loosely bound and accompanying

3871-476: The destination handset, and may originate from mobile users, from fixed network subscribers, or from other sources such as VASPs. On some carriers non-subscribers can send messages to a subscriber's phone using an Email-to-SMS gateway . Additionally, many carriers, including AT&T Mobility , T-Mobile USA , Sprint , and Verizon Wireless , offer the ability to do this through their respective websites. For example, an AT&T subscriber whose phone number

3950-487: The end of 2010, it was the most widely used data application with an estimated 3.5 billion active users, or about 80% of all mobile phone subscribers. More recently, SMS has become increasingly challenged by newer proprietary instant messaging services; RCS has been designated as the potential open standard successor to SMS. SMS technology originated from radio telegraphy in radio memo pagers that used standardized phone protocols. These were defined in 1986 as part of

4029-597: The form of the mobile devices in terms of being non-planar, one can also have skin devices and tiny dust-sized devices. Dust refers to miniaturized devices without direct HCI interfaces, e.g., micro-electromechanical systems ( MEMS ), ranging from nanometers through micrometers to millimeters. See also Smart dust . Skin : fabrics based upon light emitting and conductive polymers and organic computer devices. These can be formed into more flexible non-planar display surfaces and products such as clothes and curtains, see OLED display . Also, see smart device . Although mobility

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4108-479: The inbox. It can be useful in emergencies , such as a fire alarm or cases of confidentiality , as in delivering one-time passwords . In 2010, almost half a million silent SMS messages were sent by the German federal police, customs and the federal domestic intelligence service Verfassungsschutz . These silent messages, also known as silent TMS, stealth SMS, stealth ping or Short Message Type 0, are used to locate

4187-470: The internet, for hours at a time, and using PC-to-PC “ instant messaging ” (IM) the preferred mode of electronic chat among American teenagers. This is also backed by the fact that as of 2003, American internet users were spending on average five times more time online than Europeans, and many poorer countries in Europe and other regions around the world had significantly lower rates of internet access compared to

4266-432: The length of the messages to 128 bytes (later improved to 160 seven-bit characters) so that the messages could fit into the existing signalling formats. Based on his personal observations and on analysis of the typical lengths of postcard and Telex messages, Hillebrand argued that 160 characters was sufficient for most brief communications. SMS could be implemented in every mobile station by updating its software. Hence,

4345-529: The message "This handset was nicked, buying or selling is a crime. The police." SMS was originally designed as part of GSM, but is now available on a wide range of networks globally, including 3G, 4G and 5G networks. However, not all text messaging systems use SMS, and some notable alternative implementations of the concept include J-Phone 's SkyMail and NTT Docomo 's Short Mail , both in Japan. Email messaging from phones, as popularized by NTT Docomo's i-mode and

4424-450: The message through the SS7 network. Another type of SMS gateway provider is based on SS7 connectivity to route SMS messages, also known as "international termination model". The advantage of this model is the ability to route data directly through SS7, which gives the provider total control and visibility of the complete path during SMS routing. This means SMS messages can be sent directly to and from recipients without having to go through

4503-609: The message was "Merry Christmas." The first commercial deployment of a short message service center (SMSC) was by Aldiscon part of Logica (now part of CGI ) with Telia (now TeliaSonera ) in Sweden in 1993, followed by Fleet Call (now Nextel ) in the US, Telenor in Norway and BT Cellnet (now O2 UK) later in 1993. All first installations of SMS gateways were for network notifications sent to mobile phones, usually to inform of voice mail messages. The first commercially sold SMS service

4582-429: The mobile device has been marked by increasing technological convergence . Early mobile devices—such as pocket calculators , portable media players , satellite navigation devices , and digital cameras —excelled at their intended use but were not multifaceted. Personal digital assistants (PDAs) proliferated in the 1990s as a way to quickly write down notes, schedule business appointments, and set personal reminders, as

4661-783: The most common mobile device in the world, in terms of quantity sold, owing to their great convergence of technologies. By the early 2010s, mobile devices began integrating sensors such as accelerometers , magnetometers , and gyroscopes , allowing the detection of orientation and motion. Mobile devices may provide biometric user authentication, such as face recognition or fingerprint recognition. Handheld devices such as enterprise digital assistants have become more rugged for use in mobile field management . This involves tasks such as digitizing notes, sending and receiving invoices , asset management , recording signatures, managing parts, and scanning barcodes and RFID tags. In 2009, developments in mobile collaboration systems enabled

4740-541: The network operator supports it. SMS may be used to provide premium rate services to subscribers of a network. Mobile-terminated short messages can be used to deliver digital content such as news alerts, financial information, logos, and ringtones . The first premium-rate media content delivered via the SMS system was the world's first paid downloadable ringing tones, as commercially launched by Saunalahti (later Jippii Group, now part of Elisa Group ), in 1998. Initially, only Nokia branded phones could handle them. By 2002

4819-534: The popularity of mobile gaming , the gambling industry started offering casino games on mobile devices, which led to the inclusion of these devices in the anti-hazard legislature as devices that could potentially be used for illegal gambling. Additional potentially unlawful actions could encompass the utilization of mobile devices in disseminating explicit material involving minors. Moreover, the legitimate adult entertainment sector's incorporation of mobile apps and technology to advance its operations raises concerns. There

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4898-480: The population as of 2023. In order to create a modern successor to SMS that isn't run by a single company and is fully interoperable between devices, industry figures have created the RCS 'Universal Profile' initiative. It was supported by Apple when iOS 18 came out in 2024, which will mean that virtually all new mobile phones (iOS and Android platforms) will have RCS texting capabilities, though this may also depend on if

4977-523: The protocol. Transmission of short messages between the SMSC and the handset is done whenever using the Mobile Application Part (MAP) of the SS7 protocol. Messages are sent with the MAP MO- and MT-ForwardSM operations, whose payload length is limited by the constraints of the signaling protocol to precisely 140 bytes (140 bytes × 8 bits / byte = 1120 bits). Short messages can be encoded using

5056-451: The provision of a message transmission service of alphanumeric messages to mobile users "with acknowledgement capabilities". The last three words transformed SMS into something much more useful than the electronic paging services used at the time that some in GSM might have had in mind. SMS was considered in the main GSM group as a possible service for the new digital cellular system. In GSM document " Services and Facilities to be provided in

5135-471: The public switched telephone networks and public data networks ... should be available in the mobile system." This plan included the exchange of text messages either directly between mobile stations, or transmitted via message handling systems in use at that time. The SMS concept was developed in the Franco-German GSM cooperation in 1984 by Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert . The GSM

5214-428: The ringtone business globally had exceeded $ 1 billion of service revenues, and nearly US$ 5 billion by 2008. Today, they are also used to pay smaller payments online—for example, for file-sharing services, in mobile application stores, or VIP section entrance. Outside the online world, one can buy a bus ticket or beverages from ATM, pay a parking ticket, order a store catalog or some goods (e.g., discount movie DVDs), make

5293-433: The spontaneous creation of the so-called ' SMS language ' phenomenon, where words are shortened in order to deal with the 160 character limit of SMS messages. Usage of SMS for mobile data services became increasingly prominent in the early 2000s due to its ubiquity, reliability, and cold reception of the newer WAP standard. (see Premium-rated services below). In the early and mid 2000s, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)

5372-423: The subgroup WP3 network aspects chaired by Jan Audestad (Telenor). The result was approved by the main GSM group in a June 1985 document which was distributed to industry. The input documents on SMS had been prepared by Friedhelm Hillebrand of Deutsche Telekom , with contributions from Bernard Ghillebaert of France Télécom . The definition that Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert brought into GSM called for

5451-507: The technology was made freely available to the whole world. The first proposal which initiated the development of SMS was made by a contribution of Germany and France in the GSM group meeting in February 1985 in Oslo. This proposal was further elaborated in GSM subgroup WP1 Services (Chairman Martine Alvernhe, France Telecom) based on a contribution from Germany. There were also initial discussions in

5530-480: The use of handheld devices that combine video, audio, and on-screen drawing capabilities to enable multi-party conferencing in real-time, independent of location. Handheld computers are available in a variety of form factors, including smartphones , handheld PDAs , ultra-mobile PCs and tablet computers ( Palm OS , WebOS ). Users can watch television through the Internet by IPTV on some mobile devices. Mobile television receivers have existed since 1960, and, in

5609-518: The use of the cloud . Although a common form of mobile device, a smartphone, has a display, another perhaps even more common form of smart computing device, the smart card , e.g., used as a bank card or travel card, does not have a display. This mobile device often has a CPU and memory but needs to connect or be inserted into a reader to display its internal data or state. There are many kinds of mobile devices, designed for different applications. They include, but are not limited to: The history of

5688-467: The user sees a USSD message with their new balance. USSD can also be used to refill the balance on the user's SIM card and to deliver one-time passwords or PIN codes. Some operators use USSD to provide access to real-time updates from social-networking websites including Facebook and Twitter . Between 2012 and 2018, the Misplaced Pages Zero project provided access to Misplaced Pages articles via USSD. USSD

5767-433: Was 555-555-5555 would receive emails addressed to 5555555555@txt.att.net as text messages. Subscribers can easily reply to these SMS messages, and the SMS reply is sent back to the original email address. Sending email to SMS is free for the sender, but the recipient is subject to the standard delivery charges. Only the first 160 characters of an email message can be delivered to a phone, and only 160 characters can be sent from

5846-752: Was developed as an improved version of SMS that supports sending of pictures and video. SMS has been increasingly challenged by Internet Protocol -based messaging services with additional features for modern mobile devices, such as Facebook Messenger , WhatsApp , Telegram , or WeChat . These services run independently from mobile network operators and typically don't provide cross-platform messaging capabilities like SMS or email does. For example, between 2010 and 2022, SMS telecom revenue in India dropped 94 percent, while "revenue share per user from data usage...grew over 10 times.", although in some regions such as North America SMS continues to be used by over 80 percent of

5925-575: 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 reached 35 per user per month, and on Christmas Day 2006, over 205 million messages were sent in the UK alone. SMS had become a social phenomenon in Finland among teens and youngsters by 1999. SMS traffic across Europe reached 4 billion messages as of January 2000. It had become extremely popular in

6004-423: Was later introduced as an upgrade to SMS with "picture messaging" capabilities. In addition to recreational texting between people, SMS is also used for mobile marketing (a type of direct marketing ), two-factor authentication logging-in, televoting , mobile banking (see SMS banking ), and for other commercial content. The SMS standard has been hugely popular worldwide as a method of text communication: by

6083-408: Was offered to consumers, as a person-to-person text messaging service by Radiolinja (now part of Elisa) in Finland in 1993. Most early GSM mobile phone handsets did not support the ability to send SMS text messages, and Nokia was the only handset manufacturer whose total GSM phone line in 1993 supported user-sending of SMS text messages. According to Matti Makkonen , an engineer at Nokia at the time,

6162-508: Was originally intended for customers to receive alerts from their carrier/operator . The service allows users to send and receive text messages of up to 160 characters, originally to and from GSM phones and later also CDMA and Digital AMPS ; it has since been defined and supported on newer networks, including present-day 5G ones. Using SMS gateways , messages can be transmitted over the Internet through an SMSC , allowing communication to computers, fixed landlines , and satellite . MMS

6241-485: Was responsible for the specification of SMS. Finn Trosby of Telenor chaired the draft group through its first three years, in which the design of SMS was established. DGMH had five to eight participants, and Finn Trosby mentions as major contributors Kevin Holley, Eija Altonen, Didier Luizard and Alan Cox. The first action plan mentions for the first time the Technical Specification 03.40 "Technical Realisation of

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