[img]Messaging – SMS, MMS & Twitter
In the early 1980s a technology for sending short messages was described and proposed by some European engineers as part of the GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) specification. GSM has since become the predominant mobile voice communications protocol.
On the surface, the management components of a GSM network mimic those of a PSTN network. The innovation in this messaging protocol was that it was embedded in the control signaling, rather than the voice signaling, of the GSM network.
Control commands are relatively short in duration compared to the length of phone calls. The control pathways in a phone system are busy in short bursts for setting-up and tearing-down calls but otherwise are unoccupied. The control protocol for European phone system is called SS7 (Signalling System #7). The message protocol SMS (Short Message Service) was designed to operate within the short bursts typically used only for control signaling and complied perfectly with SS7 – its host protocol. And since a message doesn’t need to actually connect one caller to another immediately so that they could speak in real time, it was a perfect use of that excess capacity built-in to most phone systems. Messages can be held in queue until the control network has the time to transmit them.
Eventually text messaging caught on to the point that today nearly 80% of mobile subscribers have access to SMS services.
SMS services, as you have just learned, are a component of most mobile phone networks. Those mobile networks meter and bill text messages and very often transmit those text messages to one another via VoIP networks utilizing the RBR technology.
MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) is an extension of SMS where the SMS messaging system is used to transmit the internet locations of pictures, video, and other multimedia content. But it relies on SMS which relies on GSM/VoIP interoperability, which relies upon the RBR technology.
Twitter is a service that enables millions of people to stay in-touch with niche communities of like interests. Twitter messages (tweets) are transmitted via SMS, which utilizes RBR technology.
As you can see the application of the RBR technology is so widespread and so many of the things that all of us in our 21st century world depend upon every day. RBR is a key technology to the interconnection of our planet’s peoples.[/img]
