sms

Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as 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. Additionally, an intermediary service can facilitate a text-to-voice conversion to be sent to landlines.
Developed as part of the GSM standards, SMS rolled out commercially on digital cellular networks starting in 1993. The service allows users to send and receive messages of up to 160 characters (when entirely alpha-numeric) to and from GSM (as well as CDMA and Digital AMPS) mobile phones. In addition to recreational texting between people, SMS is also used in mobile marketing (a type of direct marketing), as well as for two-factor authentication logging-in security.
The SMS standard has been hugely popular worldwide as a method of text communication. By the end of 2010, SMS was the most widely used data application, with an estimated 3.5 billion active users, or about 80% of all mobile phone subscribers. The global SMS messaging business was estimated to be worth over US$240 billion in 2013, accounting for almost half of all revenue generated by mobile messaging. See also: text messaging and instant messaging.

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