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Text Messaging

Text Messaging, method of communication allowing cellular, or mobile, phone users to exchange brief notes, typically up to 160 characters in length. In the United Kingdom alone, nearly 2 billion text messages are sent every year.

The huge popularity of text messaging is remarkable considering that the service was developed by mobile operators in the early 1990s as something of an afterthought and was never expected to take off.

The main reason for its success is that younger phone users have adopted text messages as their preferred means of communication. Early concerns over the clumsy means of entering text and the limited length of messages have been overcome partly by familiarity and partly by a shorthand language; for instance “c u l8er” is an abbreviated way of saying “See you later”. A major factor in the uptake of text messaging was that it was free when pre-pay phones were first introduced. Even with messages now charged for, they are still considerably cheaper than mobile phone calls.

Virtually all text messages conform to the globally accepted Short Message Service (SMS) standard. SMS allows up to 160 characters to be sent from a mobile phone and received by another. It is also possible to download ring tones using SMS and to exchange messages with electronic mail and paging systems.

An important feature of text messages is that they can be sent at any time. The intended recipient does not have to have their phone switched on, as the mobile network will store a message until it can be delivered. Mobile operators have a part of their network dedicated to the storage and delivery of text messages.

Contributed By:
Mark Norris

Microsoft ® Encarta ® Encyclopedia 2003. © 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.