SMS

An SMS (Short Message Service) is a text message from the GSM standard capped at 160 characters, carried by the mobile network to the recipient's phone.

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In brief

An SMS (Short Message Service) is a text message from the GSM standard capped at 160 characters, carried by the mobile network to the recipient's phone.

Going deeper

Born in the GSM standard at the very end of the 1980s, the Short Message Service refers to sending short texts. It had to slip into the signalling channels already present on the network, a constraint that explains its founding cap of 160 characters.

No text jumps directly from one mobile to another: it is handed to a service centre (SMS-C) which holds it and then pushes it to the recipient as soon as they become reachable again. This store-then-forward logic ensures delivery even when the device is switched off, which makes the SMS a simple and reliable channel for reaching a French number.

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Related concepts

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MMSAn MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) extends the SMS to carry photo, sound or video, freeing itself from the 160-character cap.RCSRCS (Rich Communication Services) is the protocol meant to replace the SMS, with read receipts, a typing indicator and enriched messages.GSM-7 alphabetGSM-7 is the 7-bit character set used by default for SMS: it opens up 160 characters per message but leaves out some accented letters.

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