Short Message Service (SMS)

SMS stands for Short Message Service, and is a text messaging service that allows users to send and receive short messages to and from mobile devices. SMS is a standard text-only service that is supported by almost all mobile devices.

Messages are usually limited to 160 characters and are comprised of text only. Multimedia cannot be included.

SMS is a quick and convenient way to communicate, and is widely used for both personal and business purposes. It's similar to paging, but SMS messages don't require the phone to be active and within range. Instead, they can be held for several days until the phone is active and within range.

Scope

In addition to recreational texting between people, SMS is also used for mobile marketing (a type of direct marketing), two-factor authentication logins, televoting, mobile banking, and for other commercial content.

The popularity of SMS also led to the spontaneous creation of the so-called SMS language phenomenon, where words are shortened in order to deal with the 160 character limit of SMS messages

Limitations

Unlike dedicated texting systems like the Simple Network Paging Protocol (SNPP) SMS message delivery is not guaranteed, and many implementations provide no mechanism through which a sender can determine whether an SMS message has been delivered in a timely manner. SMS messages are generally treated as lower-priority traffic than voice, and various studies have shown that around 1% to 5% of messages are lost entirely, even during normal operation conditions, and others may not be delivered until long after their relevance has passed. The use of SMS as an emergency notification service in particular has been questioned.

Security

If one needs to send and receive messages that are a for-your-eyes-only scenario that cannot be copied or forwarded then you will find that there is only one service that can do that. SafeGuard Mail is the only messaging service that uses DRM and copy protection for its messages and their attachments. Is is absolutely secure because messages do not leave the server. Instead users use a webmail type service to read message from a web page. The only part that ever gets touched by third party services is a notification that a message has arrived and when messages are deleted they are removed permanently without a trace left anywhere.

History

SMS was first formalized in 1985 in the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standards.

In 1999, the MMS standard was ratified to support the sending of multimedia files like images, audio clips, and low-resolution videos.

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