SMS Text messaging
The growth of SMS text messaging in Europe has been nothing short of phenomenal.
32 Billion SMS messages were sent in 2005 compared to 1 Billion in 1999
Text messaging is now a way of life for young and old. In particular it has been adopted by the media industry for interacting with a remote audience for activities such as voting or opinion gathering.
Much of the success of text messaging is due to its simplicity. At its core it provides the ability to deliver a string of 165 characters to another mobile number. All these messages are routed via the mobile operator through a short message service centre (SMSC).
Generally speaking SMS traffic is viewed as a particularly robust form of communication with a mobile device. It is often the case that SMS traffic will get through when others forms of communication such as GPRS fail. This is because of the nature of the SMS traffic. It is a very short message and is delivered using the basic GSM network without overly complicated network or application protocols
Due to its success attempts have been made to extend the original specification. For instance it is now possible to send longer messages which are broken down into separate messages up to the 165 character limit. When these separate messages are received at the destination number they are reconstituted into a single message.
The most notable extension to SMS is MMS which allows for the transmission of not just text but also pictures. This combined with a camera phone lead the mobile operators to expect a boom in picture messaging. The technology behind MMS is completely different from SMS and will not be dealt with here.
To take advantage of SMS capabilities within an application is very straightforward. For example certain mobile phones can be connected to a PC via a data cable and an application can be installed on the desktop to create and send the message. Additionally programming interfaces are available allowing message to be created from within other applications such as a contact management system and sent directly from this.
Some good examples are
Act Mobile Messenger
RTE Software
Another option is to use an internet service provider who will provide a web browser application accessible over the internet for creating a message and sending it.
One example of such a service is Ipipi
Similarly an application can be integrated with an incoming SMS message stream using either a direct mobile phone connection or an internet connection. A two way SMS dialogue can therefore be established providing a mobile phone users access to data via such an application.
One example of such a service is Clairmail
For high levels of traffic it is best to use the internet connectivity option for an application sending and receiving SMS traffic. To serve this requirement a number of service providers know as SMS aggregators have established themselves.
An SMS aggregator will establish a commercial relationship with a mobile operator for reselling of SMS traffic on that operators network and for connecting to that operators SMSC. They will then provide a service offering SMS connection options as described above to their customers.
To connect to an SMS aggregator a communication protocol know as SMPP (Short Message Peer to Peer) will typically be used.
One example of such a service is Clickatell
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