SMS was one of the first communication methods that became popular with the arrival of mobile telephony. For very little money, even for free and you knew the free message centers that were available, you could send countless messages to your friends as if it were currently WhatsApp.
However, when the internet began to reach mobile phones, messaging applications began to arrive, applications that, although sometimes they were not free (WhatsApp was initially paid on iOS), were quickly replacing SMS. This spelled the end of a very important source of income for the operators.
It was late. The operators worked on different messaging applications, not counting each other, so, unsurprisingly, it was a failure. They had missed the messaging app train out of greed.
The only positive point was that mobile data rates began to become popular, since, without internet on the mobile, WhatsApp was of little or no use, since it requires an internet connection to work.
While it is its main virtue, it is also its main problem, something that does not happen with SMS. The SMS that are sent and received on a mobile phone, whether smart or not, do not work with the internet, but rather through SMSC.
What is SMSC
Short Message Service Center (if we translate it into Spanish), or SMSC (Short Message Service Center) is the nerve center of text messages. Its function is to send and receive text messages, it is who is responsible for distributing SMS.
How SMSC works
The SMSC receives the messages from the senders and lets them pass before they reach their recipients, that is, we could say the server that is in charge of distributing the text messages, regardless of which number or operator they correspond to.
But, before sending it, find out if the destination device has coverage, that is, if it has a mobile signal, not the internet, because as I mentioned above, SMS does not work with the internet, but through the operator networks.
If the recipient is connected to the network, that is, they have coverage, they will send the message instantly. If not, it will store it for a while (depending on the carriers) until the recipient reconnects to the mobile network.
If the predetermined time that each operator has to store the message elapses without sending it because it is not available, the message is automatically deleted from the SMSC, and it will never be sent.
If we want to make sure that a message is delivered, in the SMS configuration options, we must activate the delivery / reception message. This message will not confirm if the message has been received. It will not inform us if this has been read as if they allow us to know the messaging applications that work through the internet.
What are SMS
Once again, the meaning of SMS comes from English. SMS stands for Short Message Service.
As it gives us to indicate its name, SMS allows us to send short messages (short) being the maximum number of characters of 160.
This technology, which came into operation in 1992 in Europe, makes it possible to send and receive messages between mobile phones using GSM networks.
Text messages, SMS, can contain a maximum of 140 bytes (not characters) so, depending on the type of characters, the maximum can be 160 or 70.
For the maximum limit of 160 characters, the 7-bit character encoding is used, encoding suitable for use with Latin characters.
However, if non-Latin characters (Chinese, Japanese…) are used, the maximum number of characters is 70.
Limitations of SMS
One of the downsides of SMS technology is that it can only carry a very limited amount of data. The solution to this problem was long SMS.
To send a long message, the sender just has to type what they want to say, regardless of whether it is longer than 160 characters. If it exceeds 160 characters, the device will divide the sending of messages into blocks of 160 characters while the receiverC will only receive an SMS with all the messages that the sender has sent.
Another major drawback of SMS is that it does not allow you to include multimedia content such as photos, videos or files of any kind. The solution to this problem was called EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service) although some operators called it MMS.
EMS is an application-level extension of SMS, a type of message that can include images, videos and melodies as well as allowing text to be formatted (bold, italic…).
Unfortunately, EMS is not as compatible as SMS. Also, the price compared to SMS was very high. Shortly after, messaging platforms arrived, so EMS technology barely became popular as SMS did.
SMS compatibility
SMS text messaging supports all languages supported by Unicode, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Also, SMS is 100% compatible with GMS mobile phones. You don't have to do anything to activate SMS on your mobile phone, you don't need to install any application.
Today, it is used by public administrations to send notifications, as well as by operators to inform users when they have received a call and had the phone without coverage, to receive messages from platforms to verify the authenticity of an account (authentication in two steps) ...
Although their use has been greatly reduced, they still have a long life, especially when they are soon to be replaced by RCS technology.
What is RCS technology
Google has been working on RCS (Rich Communication Service) technology since 2016, a technology that will allow us to send any type of content (text, images, videos ...) through the operator, without depending on an application or an internet connection.
The objective of this technology is for the technology to become a standard in the telephony industry, as SMS have been, and for all users to be able to send and receive content regardless of whether or not they have internet on their devices. mobiles.
It will not be necessary to install any application, as if we currently have to do if we use WhatsApp, Telegram ...