Sms/txt Where It All Began.

Back in the early days of the mobile phone, it was used simply for making occasional voice calls in an emergency, or to pass on important information. The cost of using a mobile phone was incredibly high, and this meant that they were not used so widely for social communication.

Until around 1998, very few people even knew that you could send a text message from a mobile phone. The SMS or short messaging system was a tool that was included in most phones for engineers to test the network, rather than as a means of quick communication.

The mobile phone networks thought that the killer app for the 2G mobile when the digital networks were unveiled was their ability to format information into a fax, which would allow users to send a message to their office from anywhere.

The ability for users to send short messages of 160 characters was not a function that was really promoted by the networks in the UK, and it was not possible to send a message from a phone on one network such as Vodafone to a mobile on Orange, or vice versa.

Overseas users, particularly those in Japan however took to sending text messages quite quickly, and it became a real social phenomenon. It didn’t take long for the UK networks to catch on that people could use the text function to keep in touch, and they began to allow cross network messaging, and added an allowance of text messages to people’s subscriptions in the same way as with voice minutes.

It cost around a third of the price of a minute’s call to send an SMS in the early days, and this relatively cheap price meant that they immediately became very popular. Soon users found that they text message was a great way of flirting, or of sending a message without having to speak to someone. The number of text messages sent every day is growing at a huge rate, and shows no signs of slowing down, and it is becoming the preferred medium for information exchange across businesses as well as social groups. Indeed, the greatest source of revenue for the mobile networks is text messaging.

The limitation of the SMS standard to just 160 characters has meant that people who use them have had to become ever more inventive in order to get their meaning across in a single text, and this has led to a whole language springing up that is all but unintelligible to the uninitiated.

All in all, not bad for an engineer’s tool that no one was expected to use!

By: Mark Hirst

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Mark Hirst writes for Best Mobile Contracts, a website that specialises in finding the best mobile phone deals. If you would like to find great 3 mobile contracts then visit his site today.