The Unexpected Success of SMS

The unexpected success of SMS

Telenor's Finn Trosby shares his version of how SMS came to be.

It's been 25 years since the birth of Short Message Service (SMS). This was a time before "c u l8r"and "lol" became commonplace in our daily communication; before we used text messages to end relationships, vote for Idols and buy things; before telecom companies relied on text-based communication for a large chunk of their revenue. The origins of SMS are the source of much speculation, igniting all sorts of rumours as to where and how this technology was discovered. But, as with most rumours, it is difficult to find the real root of the origins of SMS unless you go directly to the source and ask someone like Telenor's Finn Trosby.

Designing a new way of sending messages

Finn Trosby, advisor for Telenor since 1972 and co-author of "Short Message Service: The creation of personal global text messaging" (2010), served as the chairman for the "Draft Group on Message Handling" in the GSM project from 1987 to 1990. The services section of GSM had envisioned that some sort of text messaging service should be supported, and Trosby led the sub-group that set out to design this new way of sending messages. "My role was to chair the sub-group and ensure that the message services that GSM had outlined were fully specified. Our most important achievement was perhaps to make SMS a full-fledged two-way messaging service, rather than GSM's pre-conceived notion that SMS was simply a one-way paging service for cellular users," said Trosby.

Successful, multi-national collaboration

Trosby is quick to deny any credit for the creation of today's SMS, asserting that SMS, like GSM, was a successful multi-national collaboration. When asked about where the idea for SMS blossomed, Trosby responded, "Ideas and implementations of short messages sent wirelessly were everywhere. The public was already using pagers and text messaging was used by dispatching companies in the European and American private sectors. But the true conception of SMS originated in those first GSM documents that depicted the GSM Short Message Service."

Motivation behind SMS creation

Most people involved with GSM in the late-1980s thought of SMS as simply an alert mechanism, notifying people when they received a voice message on their mobile phones. Trosby admits that at the time, even the SMS crew did not imagine the full versatility of SMS, which begs the question, why did they choose to pursue something of such seemingly little consequence? "Back then we had more opportunities to suggest services that weren't instantly recognised as profitable. I think any steering committee today would have identified this project as having little guarantee of a quick profit and may have shut it down," said Trosby. "This was a time when GSM was new and we had a very good feeling about it. SMS was a service that differentiated GSM and it didn't add much complexity and cost to the system."

Connecting the world has been Telenor's domain for more than 160 years, and we are driven by a singular vision: to empower societies. Trosby contributes to a new book on the true history of SMS

During the winter of 2009, Friedhelm Hillebrand, the head of the specification of the GSM data services, invited Trosby and a few other key SMS contributors to help write a book on the conception, design and implementation of SMS. It was time to tell the true story of SMS and right the tabloids' wrongs about how text messaging came to be. "In our book, we wanted to describe how SMS was conceived in the GSM project. It was a synthesis of many ideas from the outside world that came to fruition in the GSM environment, and it was our job to design it," said Trosby.

What we didn't know then...

"It was extremely fun to be a part of such a major achievement as GSM, even if we didn't realise the importance of every service at the time," said Trosby. "Many of our GSM fellow members thought SMS was a little project with no significant commercial value. Even we, the SMS crew, weren't even close to comprehending the wilderness of applications provided by SMS today." While its birthplace remains the source of tabloid fodder and its invention the credit of many, one thing is clear: SMS has made its impact on the telecom industry. Just ask the 2.4 billion daily active users.

Telenor Group is one of the world's major mobile operators. We keep our customers connected in our markets across Scandinavia and Asia. Our more than 30,000 employees are committed to responsible business conduct and being our customers' favourite partner in digital life. Connecting the world has been Telenor's domain for more than 160 years, and we are driven by a singular vision: to empower societies.