What is SMS Full Form?

Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a component of the text messaging service of most phone systems, the Internet, and mobile devices. A switching service may provide text-to-speech conversion for sending to landlines.

SMS technology originated from radiotelegraphy in radio emergency call devices using standardized telephone protocols. The first text message was sent on December 3, 1992, when Neil Papworth, a test engineer for Sema Group, texted "Merry Christmas" to his colleague Richard Jarvis' Orbitel 901 phone.

SMS was commercially introduced on many cellular networks during this decade and became very popular as a method of text communication worldwide.

The service allows users to send and receive messages of up to 160 characters (when fully alphanumeric) to and from GSM mobile phones. Although most SMS messages are sent from one cellphone to another, support for the service has been extended to other mobile technologies such as CDMA and AMPS digital networks.

The global SMS messaging business was valued at more than $240 billion in 2013, accounting for nearly half of all mobile messaging revenue.

The integration of text messaging capabilities into mobile devices began in the early 1980s. The CEPT GSM Group's first action plan was approved in December 1982 and called for: "Services and facilities offered in public telephone networks and public data networks should be available in the mobile system". This plan involved the exchange of text messages directly between mobile stations or the Transmission via the message processing systems used at the time.

The SMS concept was developed in 1984 by Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert in the German-French GSM cooperation. GSM is optimized for telephony, as this has been identified as the main application. The key idea for SMS was to use this phone-optimized system and carry messages on the signal paths needed to handle phone traffic during periods of no signal traffic.

In this way, idle resources in the system could be used to transmit messages at minimal cost. Based on his personal observations and analysis of typical postcard and telex message lengths, Hillebrand argued that 160 characters was sufficient for most short messages.

SMS could be implemented in any mobile station by updating its software. Therefore, when people started using SMS, there was a large base of SMS compatible devices and networks. A new required network element was a dedicated short message service center and improvements in radio capacity and network transport infrastructure were required to handle the growing SMS traffic.

The technical development of SMS was a multinational collaboration supporting the framework of standardization bodies. Through these organizations, the technology was made available to everyone free of charge.

This proposal was further developed in the GSM WP1 Services subgroup (chair Martine Alvernhe, France Telecom) on the basis of a contribution from Germany.

The result was approved by the main GSM group in a June 1985 document circulated to industry. The SMS input documents were prepared by Friedhelm Hillebrand of Deutsche Telekom with input from Bernard Ghillebaert of France Télécom.