The GSM (Global System for
Mobile communications) was developed to allow mobile
communication across multiple platforms throughout
Europe. The European Conference of Postal and
Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) created the
Groupe Special Mobile, which became known as the GSM,
with the objective of creating a standardized system.
Working with the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute the GSM
and SMS standards were developed. The 3GPP is now
responsible for the Standards further development
and maintenance. The system that was created,
quickly became the most widely used standard with 2
billion people on the system. The wide use of a
standard meant that roaming was made extremely easy.
Visit this
site for maps of where you can roam with your
GSM compatible cellphone.
SMS is a technology that facilitates the sending and
receiving of messages between mobile phones. Short
Message Service is self defining: it is a message with
up to 160 characters at 7-bit encoding for Latin
characters, and 70 characters at 16-bit Unicode
encoding for non-Latin characters. Each transmission is
capable of containing a 140 bytes. Though that is not a
tremendous amount of information that can be sent, the
information is able to be sent in Arabic, Chinese,
Japanese, Hindi and Korean. SMS can also handle binary
data, such as pictures, ringtones, logos, wallpapers,
animations and business cards. It is also supported by
a 100% of GSM mobile phones.
EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service) is an
application-level extension of SMS. A SMS message is
unable to transmit rich-media content –pictures,
animations and melodies- so EMS was developed as a
response to this SMS limitation. EMS allows the user to
control certain font features, but is limited in this
use by the inability of available handheld wireless
components to support certain EMS features. EMS is also
limited because it is not nearly as widely supported as
SMS. This limitation greatly effects its use
worldwide.
To buy a ringtone for example, the user writes an ordinary SMS text message that contains the ID of the ringtone he/she wants to buy and then sends it to the SMS application's reverse billing phone number. The seller’s SMS application will then send back one or more reverse billing SMS messages that carry the ringtone. The user will be charged a fee for the reverse billing SMS messages he/she received. The fee will be included in the user's monthly mobile phone bill or be deducted from his/her prepaid card credits.
It is easy to see why business finds SMS advantageous.
The services available because of SMS continue to grow. When SMS was still in the GSM committee the original idea for SMS was that it would be a great tool for alerts and important notifications in the public sector. From this singular beginning the array of services offered increased to the current level of notification for such things as emails, credit card transactions, stock market reports, alarm system monitoring, data system monitoring, and database searches that can include restaurants and queries like dictionaries and sport trivia.
One of the extraordinary
qualities that SMS brings to the individuals user’s
world is its functionality across languages. Whether
one is writing in Kanji, Semitic languages,
Indo-European tongues or Chinese SMS can be used to
benefit the user.