Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Happy (Early) Bday! :) SMS Txt Msgs Turn 20

Posted by timothy on from the compression-of-need dept.

CWmike writes "In the fast moving world of technology, there are perhaps few things that have proved as resistant to change as the simple SMS text message. While a dizzying number of options exist today to interconnect people, the text message remains a 160 character deliverer of news, gossip, laughs, alerts, and all manner of other information. It connects more people than Facebook and Twitter, has brought down governments, and in so much of the world still holds the ability to change lives. Dec. 3 is the 20th anniversary of the sending of the first SMS text message. Its origins can be traced back to a Danish pizzeria in 1984. Matti Makkonen, a Finnish engineer, was in Copenhagen for a mobile telecom conference and began discussing with two colleagues the idea of a messaging system on the GSM digital cellular system."

17 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. How many of you know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    your first (cell-phone initiated) text message?

    (My phone didn't save, but I should be able to get a copy with any luck, I hope.)

  2. When you absolutely, positively by Provocateur · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When you absolutely, positively must get that message across, SMS is your friend. Thank you Matti, Cope and Hagen!

    --
    WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
    1. Re:When you absolutely, positively by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2

      Wireless had hideously slow data rates. While a handful of people could pump big emails perhaps, not thousands of people at once. You'd be waiting forever.

      A mere 15 years ago, people were investigating using "Cue" modules, which contractually used the short text message RDS capability of radio individual stations, but to send personal messages.

      Nowadays people send messages both short and long, as well as pictures of things both short and long! Yey, now!

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    2. Re:When you absolutely, positively by Pentium100 · · Score: 2

      In my country SMS is very reliable, to the point that it may be more reliable than calls (if the reception is bad you won't be able to call or understand the other person, but the phone will keep retrying to send the message until is succeeds).

  3. I don't know which is weirder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That SMS was invented all the way back in 1984, or that Danes eat pizza.

    1. Re:I don't know which is weirder... by Hsien-Ko · · Score: 4, Insightful

      or that 1984 is 20 years ago, given the poor article summary.

    2. Re:I don't know which is weirder... by schitso · · Score: 3, Informative

      It was discussed in 1984. "Dec. 3 is the 20th anniversary of the sending of the first SMS text message." 1992.

  4. Popular just today in Japan by fukapon · · Score: 2

    Happy birthday!
    SMS is more popular today than a few years ago because we can send it between different network operators.
    Actually, we didn't have the SMS, possible to send to any phone, until July 2011.

  5. overflated cost = money maker by Nyder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Who knew that 160 chars of text could cost so much? Almost pure profit for any cellular company.

    --
    Be seeing you...
    1. Re:overflated cost = money maker by darjen · · Score: 2

      I have google voice on my galaxy nexus. I won't ever need to pay for texting again.

    2. Re:overflated cost = money maker by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      Actually, it wasn't always like this - in the beginning, text messages were ... well, free. Because it was assumed voice would be primary and SMS would be used sparingly, after all, you only have a 10-digit keypad to enter characters in. So even the 160-character limit wasn't a huge thing as who had the patience to type it all in.

      Then what happened is people realized that instead of paying for a phone call, they could send a text for free, so it took off in Asia and Europe because it was free.

      Of course, carriers now had a problem because the control channel was being clogged with people sending texts - it was meant as a side thing added to the spec, but now enough were being sent that control channels were being seriously overloaded, which is why carriers went to a variable bandwidth control channel (Europe and Asia).

      So then the carriers (in Asia) started implementing limits, and eventually the limits fell and they became charged items. In poorer parts of the world, answering the phone is now bad - they instead rely on the phone ringing a certain number of times to be the code as SMS charged them and a phone call is still expensive.

      In North America, texting was a late comer, mostly due to the delayed introduction of GSM. It's really only been a "big" thing for just under a decade or so (while EMEA started implementing limits before that - late 90s). So none of the adaptations really made it in.

      The explosion of texting has impacted the control channel which is why carriers like AT&T actually have plenty of cell tower capacity, except they have an absolutely congested control channel. And congested control channels mean dropped calls, failure to establish data connections (but once established, supremely fast as there is plenty of voice channel bandwidth), zero/no signal as the phone can't ping the tower and vice-versa, unable to make or receive a call, and many other problems. Of course, the iPhone didn't help because its aggressive power management meant it collapsed data connections as soon as they were over (huge data users often had 200+ page bills that detailed every data "call" from this) but also added to the control channel congestion.

      And yes, any businessperson is an idiot who didn't see the profit-making potential in texting - if you have a service millions are using billions of times a day that those millions consider essential and it costs you practically nothing (other than having to erect new equipment to provide new control channels), why wouldn't you charge for it? They're addicted to texting and know of no other means of communication, so you have a captive audience who can't resist the urge to text 100 times a day.

      Hell, even texting is dying out slowly if you look at the progression of plans. First we had the demolition of roaming charges on your home network (where if you leave your city and go to a neighbouring one you started paying roaming fees, now it's "nationwide roaming"). Next you had very cheap long distance ("unlimited nationwide calling!"). These days, they're practically giving unlimited voice calls away (underutitlized channels). and now texting is easily becoming unlimited in the cheapest plans.

      The reason? The next place is data - that's the profit segment. SMS etc., are slowly dying out as everyone wants to update their Facebooks and their Twitters and everything. LTE being exclusively packet switched (and probably variable control channel bandwidth as well) it's built for data. Voice over LTE is practically VoIP (though some carriers don't do it - using 3G to handle the voice call instead).

  6. And still MMS is a hodgepodge... by MysteriousPreacher · · Score: 2

    Coming from the world of email, I found SMS to be pretty clunky. In Europe its bern working fairly well now, in terms if cross-carrier messenging. Still a probkem though with group SMS and large messages. MMS though remains a mess of varying implementations and price gouging, and barely worth consideration.

    --
    -- Using the preview button since 2005
  7. // Yeah I remember the good 'ol days // by TheRealHocusLocus · · Score: 5, Funny

    The 160 character limit is a hardware issue from the early SMS phones, when you would feed an 80 column punch card into the phone. The cards only encoded 80 characters per side so you would punch holes in both sides.

    Contrary to any rumors you may hear Twitter's 140 character limit is not derived from the SMS limit, it was calculated from the smaller attention span of the average Twitter user.

    As to the origin of the 80 column limit on punch cards, it was derived from the width of wheel ruts in Roman roads, which was determined by the span of horses' arses.

    So the horses' arses down through the ages to SMS messaging we have a circle which I'll leave you to complete.

    --
    <blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
    1. Re:// Yeah I remember the good 'ol days // by Eunuchswear · · Score: 2

      actualy SMS has a 140 octet limit - it just uses 7bit chars.

      140 * 8 / 7 = 160

      try typing a non gsm 03.38 char in a SMS and see how the number of chars left drops as it changes to utf8 mode.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
  8. SMS - yuk! by FridayBob · · Score: 2

    Darling of the telecom industry, one of the most expensive telecommunication methods ever devised.

    1. Re:SMS - yuk! by loufoque · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Looks like you're confusing pricing and cost.
      SMS does not cost anything, but is priced relatively high (compared to its cost at least).

  9. Nice creation myth by Phelan · · Score: 2

    So two years after CEPT approved working towards the SMS messaging standards 3 dudes who nobody ever heard of met and invented the standard.

    Unless the two unnamed people in this story are Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert it is a myth sold to a reporter.

    Otherwise it's like the guy that copyrighted email.

    --
    "Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"