iPhone & iPad ViewsZone

SMS Text Messaging is hugely popular, and new technology that increases mobile phone bandwidth will make Multimedia Messages the new preferred communications method.

Sending SMS text messages, technically identified as Short Message System (SMS), but more commonly known as “texting”, is a straightforward, effortless, and convenient means to communicate among cell phones.  In addition to being a exceptional system for people to keep in touch, SMS texting can be a useful way for software applications to exchange simple messages, and even settings commands, between  mobile phones.  SMS does not need a direct connection between smartphones; the communications infrastructure for the system is already prepared, and it functions across most cell networks. One facet of SMS messaging that makes it particularly handy for mobile software programs is that it uses smartphone fixed identity, the phone number. This feature provide a unique benefit over other technologies that use IP addresses because a cell phone IP address can vary depending on current network.

Short Message Service (SMS) is a communication service component of the GSM mobile communication system.  It utilizes standardized communications protocols that allow incoming and outgoing short text messages between mobiles. SMS texting is the most widely used data application around the globe, boasting about 2.4 billion active users, or three quarters of all mobile phone subscribers.

SMS texting as used on modern mobiles was at first included as part of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) series of standards in 1985  as a system of sending texts of up to 160 characters, to and from GSM mobile handsets.  Since then service support has expanded to include other mobile technologies such as ANSI CDMA networks and Digital AMPS, as well as satellite and landline networks.  Most SMS messages are mobile-to-mobile text messages, though the standard supports other types of broadcast messaging as well.  Computer to mobile phone SMS capabilities are also expanding rapidly.

Global System for Mobile Communications was originally named Groupe Spécial Mobile.  It is the most accepted standard for mobile telephone systems on earth. The GSM Association, the promoting trade organization of mobile phone network providers and manufacturers, estimates that about 80% of the world mobile market uses the standard.  GSM is enjoyed by over 3 billion people across more than two hundred countries and territories.  Its ubiquity  enables international roaming arrangements between mobile phone network providers, offering subscribers the use of their mobile devices in many parts of the world.  GSM has evolved from its predecessor technologies demonstrated by the fact that both signaling and speech channels are digital.  Thus GSM is thought of as a second generation (2G) mobile phone system.  This also  facilitates the wide-spread implementation of data communication software.

The ubiquity of GSM deployment can be seen as a benefit for consumers that are given the option to roam and switch carriers without having to replace their smartphones, and also to carriers, who can choose equipment from many equipment vendors. GSM pioneered low-cost implementation of SMS texting, which subsequently has been supported on other mobile phone standards.

Recent versions of the standard are backward-compatible with the initial GSM system.  Release ’97 of the standard added packet data capabilities using General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). Release ’99 launched higher speed data transmission using 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 communication is usually billed per megabyte of traffictransferred, while data communication via traditional circuit switching is charged per minute of connection time, independent of whether or not the user actually is using it or if it is idle. GPRS is a best-effort packet switched service, as opposed to circuit switching, that has guaranteed quality of service during the connection for non-mobile users.

2G cellular systems in combination with GPRS are often referred to as 2.5G.  2.5G is a technology bridge between the second (2G) and third (3G) generations of smartphone telephony. It provides moderate-speed data transfer, by using unused time division multiple access (TDMA) channels. Initially it was intended to broaden GPRS to cover other standards, but these networks are converting to the GSM standard.   GPRS is integrated into GSM Release 97 and newer releases.

GPRS was developed as a GSM response to the earlier CDPD and i-mode packet switched cellular technologies.  Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) was a wide-area mobile data service which used unused bandwidth normally used by AMPS mobile phones.  It was dropped along with 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 gained common acceptance before newer, faster standards such as GPRS gained common acceptance and became dominant.

For consumer markets CDPD had very limited appeal.  AT&T Wireless initially sold the technology in the US 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 was generally considered a failure.  But, CDPD was used  by several enterprise and government networks.  It was particularly popular 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 referred to as Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS), or IMT Single Carrier (IMT-SC), and Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution) is a backward-compatible digital cell phone technology that supplies improved data transmission rates on top of standard GSM.  EDGE is considered a 3G radio technology.  EDGE supplies  more than three-fold increase in both the capacity and performance of GSM/GPRS networks by incorporating sophisticated systems 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).

A very interesting software application that uses the connectivity between the smartphone  and the internet to capture and archive MMS Multi-Media Messages, GPS location,  SMS messages, and Call Event Logs is PhoneBeagle Mobile Monitoring.  Follow this link if you are interested in    Mobile Monitoring Software that is compatible with BlackBerry  and  Android  Smartphones,.    Visit this link for more information regarding the latest software for  Parental Monitoring and Employee Monitoring of Mobile Phones .

Tags: employee monitoring, gsm, MMS Multimedia Messages, Mobile SMS, Parental Monitoring, Phone Monitoring

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 2nd, 2010 at 6:41 pm and is filed under iPhone Mobile Cell Phone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.