Text Messaging and its Importance in the Modern World.
Our cell phones are used regularly to send sms messages to and receive text messages from friends, family and colleagues. On average each cell phone in the world sends 36 messages per month, this reinforces the importance of SMS or text messaging in our lives today.
But how did SMS become such a large part of our daily lives and where did it originate from?
The development of the Short Message Service cannot be attributed to a single person or company. It was the co-operation of many different people around the world that led to this achievement.
In 1985 the first proposal of SMS was made to the GSM meeting by France and Germany. This prompted the initial development of the modern SMS service on the GSM network. Using a computer, the first SMS message was sent on 3 December 1992 by the Vodafone GSM network in the United Kingdom. The first SMS or text message sent by a mobile phone, is claimed by an engineer working for Nokia in 1993.
Initial growth of the short message service was slow with an average of 0.5 messages sent per GSM handset per month in 1995. Within 5 years this number grew 70 fold with 35 text messages per handset being sent a month.
Text messaging is very widely used within the USA, sending over 70 Billion messages via SMS in 2008. The reasons for this SMS service becoming so popular are numerous.
Rather than calling a person one can save money by sending a quick SMS instead. It has also become a very popular communication channel for the youth of the world. Commercial sending of bulk SMS messages using a PC that connects to a bulk SMS gateway has become a very popular and effective marketing tool.
The short message services’ massive growth is rather simple. It provides people with an easy to use two way communication channel that costs very little versus making a phone call. Ones cell phone is always on a person so a message can be sent at any time, removing the need to be in front of a PC to send or receive an email. Telecommunication costs can be reduced by almost 80% when using SMS or text messaging.
It is also used as a notification method by big corporations, which increases their customer service ratings dramatically. SMS messaging, or texting, has become part of our daily lives and is sure to be with us for a long time.
The SMS industry has shown no signs of slowing down and is worth over 81 billion US dollars a year. It is no wonder that the SMS industry is booming, with nearly a 90% profit margin.