In: Categories » Electronics and communication » Mobile cell phones » A short history of text messaging
|
One of the first wireless text-messaging services sent messages from paging companies to alphanumeric pagers. Motorola, a dominant player in the paging industry, developed technology that consumers, dispatchers, and computers could use to send text messages over its paging networks. But you could send only 80 characters or so at a time, and a message was sent from the paging network only once — regardless of whether the pager was turned on or in coverage range. You could send text messages to pagers in all kinds of ways: Call a dispatcher with your message so that he could type it into a paging-specific keyboard connected by dialup to the paging network; buy a software package made specifically for alphanumeric paging; or (after the Internet became commonly accessible) visit a Web site to send a page. Companies then began giving pagers Internet e-mail addresses to receive e-mail messages and notifications. Next came two-way paging. Services were available on a number of wireless data networks in North America, from paging networks to wireless- packet data networks. The North American birth of two-way text messaging hit the market in the late 1990s. Few people now remember that one of the first products for wireless e-mail from Research In Motion (way before it created the BlackBerry) was the RIM Inter@ctive Pager, which worked on the ARDIS and Mobitex wireless- data-only networks. Meanwhile, over in Europe, a Finnish civil servant named Matti Makkonen invented Short Message Service (SMS) capabilities between mobile phones and wireless carrier networks using Short Message Service Center, or SMSC. The main purpose of this technology and service, developed in the early 1980s, was to automatically send customer-care alerts and service notifications directly to consumers’ mobile phones without the wireless carriers having to call them all individually. Then, about a decade later (in 1992), Makkonen’s initial research led to one of the first consumer uses of text messaging on a mobile phone. A telecommunications industry engineer in the UK named Neil Papworth sent one of the first person-to-person mobile phone messages to one of his associates at Vodafone, to wish him “Merry Christmas.” From that special greeting, today’s mobile phone textmessaging industry was born. The text messaging industry took off in Europe in the late 1990s, and early in this century in North America, when wireless carriers agreed to allow messages to go from one network to another. Just as voice calls cross networks and countries in milliseconds, text messaging services now do the same.
|
legal disclaimer
1) Our website is not responsible for the information contained by this article as well for any and all copyright infringements by authors and writers. E-articles is a free information resource. If you suspect this article for any copyright infringements, please read the Terms of service and contact us to investigate the problem.
2) The E-articles directory team is not responsible for inaccuracies, falsehoods, or any other types of misinformation this tutorial may contain and will not be liable for any loss or damage suffered by a user through the user's reliance on the information gained here. Please read the Terms of service
Useful tools and features
If you like this article (tutorial), please link to it from your web page using the information above. Linking to this page, this is the only way to help us improve our service, the same time providing your visitors with a way to improve their online experience.
related articles
Although cellular phones and cordless phones are both wireless, they have come to assume quite distinct and separate applications based on their areas of use and the differing technologies developed to meet user requirements. Cellular and cordless are implemented with their own standardsbased technologies. Briefly, cellular telephones are intended for off-site use. The systems are designed for a relatively low density of users. In this environment, macrocellular technology provides wide area coverage and t...
2. What are Cell Sites
Acellular system operates by dividing a large geographic service area into cells and assigning the same frequencies to multiple, nonadjacent cells. This is known in the industry as “frequency reuse.” As a subscriber travels across the service area, the call is transferred (handed off) from one cell to another without noticeable interruption. All the base stations in a cellular system, including radio towers, are connected to a mobile telephone switching office (MTSO) by landline or microwave links. The MT...
3. Short Introduction in Cellular Data Communications
One of the oldest services for sending data over a cellular communications network is known as “Cellular Digital Packet Data” (CDPD), which provides a way of passing Internet Protocol (IP) data packets over analog cellular voice networks at speeds of up to 19.2 kbps. Although CDPD employs digital modulation and signal processing techniques, the underlying service is still analog. The medium used to transport data consists of the idle radio channels typically used for Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) cel...
4. What is Code Division Multiple Access and its Features and Options
Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is a spread-spectrum technology that is used for implementing cellular telephone service. Spread spectrum is a family of digital communication techniques originally used in military communications and control applications. Spread spectrum uses carrier waves that consume a much wider bandwidth than that required for simple point-to-point communication at the same data rate. This results in the carrier wave looking more like random noise than real communication between a sender and r...
Cellular telephones offer many features and options, including Voice activation Sometimes called “hands-free operation,” this feature allows the user to establish and answer calls by issuing verbal commands. This safety feature enables a driver to control the unit without becoming visually distracted. Memory functions These allow storage of frequently called numbers to simplify dialing. Units may offer as few as 10 memory locations or in excess of 100, depending on model ...
6. M COMMERCE ~ SECURITY PAYS OFF
Providing secure payments and protecting the privacy of an individual’s personal data is critical to the growth of mobile ecommerce, also known as m-commerce. M-commerce may someday provide a true alternative to cash and make purchasing items as easy as hitting a few keys on the keypad of your Wireless Internet device. One of the most important issues to overcome in the area of m-commerce is fraud. It’s easy enough to prove payment in the physical world—cash works well and credit cards have sophisticated prot...
7. TRENDS IN NEXT GENERATION MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS
Shortly after cellular first launched, third-party entrepreneurs began offering modems for cellular data transmission. These modems resemble the standard analog modems circa 1985. They transmitted data at 300 baud, used a special cellular protocol called MNP-10, and an AT command set. MNP-10 made these modems different from regular modems because they had to be fault-tolerant to cellular hand-offs and the in-band signaling tones used in analog cellular. One such modem was created by a Dallas, Texas company, Spectrum Cellular, th...
8. MULTIMEDIA MESSAGING MMS
One of the Wireless Internet technologies is Multimedia Messaging (MMS). MMS is an application that uses a data call to a wireless device that delivers a message capable of incorporating any of the following in an organized and choreographed presentation: • Pictures • Data • Text • Audio • Video • Voice Whereas SMS messaging typically uses a digital control channel, MMS is on...
9. Cellular and PCS based Technologies
Cellular and PCS telephones will be the predominant mobile communications technologies for the foreseeable future. This does not mean to imply that cellular is superior to other technologies, only that it is more prevalent. With nearly 1 billion users worldwide, there is no close second. These mobile technologies are currently facing a major evolution in many areas, however, including the technical and business sectors, because they provide the economical means for realization of not only mobile computing, but also many other applicat...