SMS
text messaging service component
Short Message Service (SMS) is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, typically transmitted over cellular networks.
Developed as part of the GSM standards, and based on the SS7 signalling protocol, SMS rolled out on digital cellular networks starting in 1993 and was originally intended for customers to receive alerts from their carrier/operator. The service allows users to send and receive text messages of up to 160 characters, originally to and from GSM phones and later also CDMA and Digital AMPS; it has since been defined and supported on newer networks, including present-day 5G ones. Using SMS gateways, messages can be transmitted over the Internet through an SMSC, allowing communication to computers, fixed landlines, and satellite. MMS was later introduced as an upgrade to SMS with "picture messaging" capabilities.
In addition to recreational texting between people, SMS is also used for mobile marketing (a type of direct marketing), two-factor authentication logging-in, televoting, mobile banking (see SMS banking), and for other commercial content. The SMS standard has been hugely popular worldwide as a method of text communication: by the end of 2010, it was the most widely used data application with an estimated 3.5 billion active users, or about 80% of all mobile phone subscribers. More recently, SMS has become increasingly challenged by newer proprietary instant messaging services; Rich Communication Services (RCS) has been designated as the potential open standard successor to SMS.
Developmental history
SMS technology originated from radio telegraphy in radio memo pagers that used standardized phone protocols. These were defined in 1986 as part of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) series of standards.
“SMS” enters the record as text messaging service component. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what text, messaging and service can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“SMS” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, text, messaging and service provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q43024. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1993, 2010 and 1986.
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This entry incorporates text from “SMS” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.