Saturday, December 23, 2017

Are SMS doomed?

An SMS is a short text message sent by a (usually) employing a cellular phone to another phones or devices capable of reiving notifications. It consists of 160 7-Bit (or 140 8-Bit) characters. The first SMS was sent in the UK 1992. First commercial services started 1993 and growth was slow initially. It took until the late 1990s to really take off, making it the most used cellular service. It reached its peak around 2012.

But with the event of Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, Whatsapp and similar social media platforms traditional SMS found themselves loosing ground rapidly.

The end of SMS?

Do we see the death of SMS? At some point in the future, probably. But today

  • there are still many people using SMS
  • you need internet to use Facebook, Whatsapp and others whereas you only need a mobile phone to send a traditional SMS
  • some European banks have one time SMS sent to a customer before he can to a transaction
  • SMS uses GSM. It's just there, no maintenance needed to keep it alive

Thus I wouldn't worry that SMS will be gone any time soon.

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