| 29 March |
The Relationship between Short Message System (SMS) and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), and the Advancement Toward Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) |
SMS Text Messaging is widely popular, and new technology that increases cell phone bandwidth will make Multimedia Messages the new preferred communications method.
Sending SMS messages, technically defined as Short Message System (SMS), but typically referred to as “texting”, is a uncomplicated, easy, and handy method to communicate to and from mobile phones. Not just a very good system for people to keep in touch, SMS can be a sensible manner for software programs to exchange simple messages, and even setup instructions, to and from smartphones. text messages doesn’t require a direct connection between cell phones; the communications infrastructure for the process is already in place, and it works across most cellular networks. One feature of SMS messaging that makes it particularly practical for mobile software programs is that it uses smartphone fixed identity, the phone number. This aspect gives a unique benefit over other technologies that use IP addresses because a cell phone IP address will vary depending on current network.
Short Message Service (SMS) is a communication service component of the GSM mobile communication system. It utilizes uniform communications rules that allow incoming and outgoing short text messages between mobiles. SMS texting is the most widely used data application in the world, with about 2.4 billion active users, or three quarters of all cell phone subscribers.
SMS as used on modern cell phones was originally included as part of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) series of standards in 1985 as a system of transferring messages of up to 160 characters, to and from GSM mobile handsets. Since then service support has extended to comprise other mobile technology such as ANSI CDMA networks and Digital AMPS, as well as satellite and landline networks. The majority of SMS messages are mobile-to-mobile text messages, though the standard supports other kinds of broadcast messaging as well. Computer to mobile phone SMS texting capabilities are also growing rapidly.
Global System for Mobile Communications was originally named Groupe Spécial Mobile. It is the most popular standard for mobile telephone systems in the world. The GSM Association, the promoting trade organization of mobile phone operators and manufacturers, estimates that approximately 80% of the global mobile market uses the standard. GSM is enjoyed by over 3 billion people across more than 212 countries and territories. Its pervasiveness enables international roaming arrangements between mobile phone network providers, providing subscribers the benefit of their smartphones in many parts of the world. GSM differs from its predecessor technologies in that both signaling and speech channels are digital. This means GSM is considered a second generation (2G) mobile phone system. Additionally, this eases the wide-spread deployment of data communication programs.
The pervasiveness of GSM implementation has been a benefit for consumers that are given the option to roam and switch carriers without needing to replace their mobile phones, and also to operators, who can choose equipment from many equipment suppliers. GSM is credited with pioneering affordable deployment of SMS, which is now supported on other mobile phone standards.
Recent versions of the standard work with the original GSM system. Release ’97 of the standard upgraded to packet data capabilities using General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). Release ’99 launched high speed data transmission by means of Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE).
General packet radio service (GPRS) is a packet oriented mobile data service available to users of the 2G and 3G GSM. In 2G systems. GPRS data transfer is typically charged per megabyte of traffictransferred, while data communication using traditional circuit switching is charged per unit of connection time, without consideration of whether or not the subscriber actually is transmitting or if it is idle. GPRS is a best-effort packet switched service, as opposed to circuit switching, that has assured quality of service during the connection for non-mobile users.
2G cellular systems combined with GPRS are often described as 2.5G. 2.5G is a technology bridge between the second (2G) and third (3G) generations of mobile telephony. It provides moderate-speed data transfer, by using unused time division multiple access (TDMA) channels. Originally there was some thought to extend GPRS to cover other standards, however these networks are converting to the GSM standard. GPRS is integrated into GSM Release 97 and newer releases.
GPRS was created as a GSM reaction to the earlier CDPD and i-mode packet switched cellular technology. Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) was a wide-area mobile data service which used unused bandwidth normally used by AMPS mobile phones. It was discontinued in conjunction with the discontinuation of the parent AMPS service.
CDPD was developed in the early 1990’s, and was seen as a future technology. But, it had competition from existing slower but less expensive Mobitex and DataTac systems. CDPD never earned general acceptance before newer, faster standards such as GPRS gained common acceptance and started dominating.
For consumers CDPD had very limited offerings. AT&T Wireless initially offered the technology in the America under the brandname PocketNet, one of the very first consumer wireless web service offers. Cingular Wireless later offered CDPD under the Wireless Internet brand (as opposed to Wireless Internet Express, Cingular Wireless GPRS/EDGE data). AT&T Wireless PocketNet failed as a product launch. But, CDPD was used by a number of enterprise and government networks. It was especially successful as a first-generation wireless data solution for telemetry devices (machine to machine communications) and for public safety mobile data terminals.
Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) (also called Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS), or IMT Single Carrier (IMT-SC), and Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution) is a backward-compatible digital mobile phone technology that supplies better data transmission rates on top of standard GSM. EDGE is considered a 3G radio technology. EDGE delivers more than three-fold improvement in both the capacity and performance of GSM/GPRS networks by using sophisticated techniques of coding and transmitting data, that produce higher bit-rates per radio channel. EDGE delivers broadband performance and supports high bandwidth data applications such as Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS).
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