SMS, which stands for Short Message Service and is also referred to as “text messaging,” is a cheaper alternative to making phone calls from mobile phone to mobile phone, instead sending short messages between them. The 1985 Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) series of standards included SMS among its standards.

The original SMS standard served as a means of sending messages with a maximum of 160 characters between GSM mobile phones. Other mobile standards such as satellite and landline networks, ANSI CDMA, also known as Interim Standard 95 (IS-95), and Digital Advanced Mobile Phone System (D-AMPS) have later been able to support SMS as well.

A Short Message Service Center (SMSC), which communicates with the Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) or Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) through Internetworking and Gateway Message Switching Centers (MSC), is where short messages get stored and forwarded.

A short message generated by a mobile phone user is sent to the SMSC, which then sends it to its destination, which may be a mobile user, a subscriber on a fixed network, or a Value-Added Service Provider (VASP). Transmission between the SMSC and the mobile phone is achieved with the use of the Mobile Application Part (MAP) of the SS7 protocol.

In order to ensure a better reliability and a higher average speed of delivery, the study of Quality of Service (QoS) Monitoring for Professional Short Message Services in Mobile Networks has been developed as a collaboration between the University of Duisburg-Essen and the mobile messaging provider Tyntec.

Mobile network operators, third-party SMS gateways and mobile network infrastructure software vendors are able to use the new parameters to monitor SMS message transmission and quickly and accurately detect network transmission problems.

The GSM subgroup WP3 had considered SMS as a possible service for the new digital cellular system since February 1985. SMS messages, both mobile-originated and mobile-terminated, appear on the table of GSM telecommunications services.

Three services were included in the recommendation GSM 02.03 “TeleServices supported by a GSM PLMN,” and they are as follows: Short message Mobile Terminated (SMS-MT) / Point-to-Point, where a network sends an SMS message to a mobile handset from either another mobile handset or a software application; Short message Mobile Originated (SMS-MO) / Point-to-Point, where a network sends an SMS message to either a mobile handset or software application from a mobile handset; and Short message Cell Broadcast.

In May 1987, the Implementation of Data and Telematic Services Experts Group (IDEG), headed by Friedhelm Hillebrand, took over development of the SMS standards. The organization developed two recommendations: GSM 03.40, which merges the two point-to-point services; and GSM 03.41, Short message Cell Broadcast. The standard is still used today.

At present, SMS is a service made available on a wide range of networks. It has two main advantages: if measured by actual communication throughput, SMS is the fastest form of communication, faster by hours or days compared to any other form; and it is largely profitable, with about 90% profit margin at an average global price of 11 cents per SMS message. It is worth over 80 billion dollars globally.