SMS

Service for sending and receiving text messages (see text messaging) to and from mobile phones and other communication devices. SMS was created when it was incorporated into the Global System for Mobiles (GSM) digital mobile phone standard. The limited number of characters allowed per text message led to the evolution of a distinct form of abbreviated language (for example, ‘u’ for ‘you’ and ‘c’ for ‘see’). It is also possible to deliver an SMS message through an Internet Web site, called an SMS gateway.

The text can comprise a combination of characters, numbers, and symbols. The shortest messages are those based on the international UCS2 coding system used in countries that need more then the standard 8-bit American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) to code their character set.