Why Was Text Messaging Originally Developed?

Text messaging was originally designed by engineers to allow cellular carriers a way to communicate directly with their customers. This offered a way to advise a customer that a message was waiting, a cell site was down, a bill was due and so on.

Ultimately, users discovered that this "short message service" (SMS) could be used to send a message from one cell phone to another - called "peer to peer" (P2P) - to send brief messages (up to 160 characters) to each other. It became remarkably popular in Europe first and then quickly spread to Asia. The United States was really the last area in which text messaging became popular but the popularity has rocketed in the last couple of years.

These short messages are sent over a carrier's control channel and thus do not take up any space on the voice channels carriers use to transmit regular phone calls. They are very small bits of data and are typically transmitted when there is an extra "slot" in the control channel's availability. Normally the messages are sent very quickly - sometimes within seconds - but delivery speed is not guaranteed. There is a certain amount of latency in the system at times, although it is uncommon.

Textrivia!

• The first text message was sent in 1989 from New York City to Melbourne beach Florida.
• The first commercial SMS message was sent in 1992 in England.
• There was no special reason that SMS messages were limited to 160 characters - the engineer who invented the process just thought that was enough to get a brief thought across.