Short Messaging Service is very useful in communication with people. One thing is one can talk around the world to someone(in Ireland and The UK, as well as Canada and Mexico)from the USA. It is cheaper than calling that person.
My experience here in NYC is with those who come from Ireland and The UK. Both text across the Atlantic Ocean from New York City. The favorite service for SMS is T-Mobile to Europe.The Irish and Brits buy T-Mobile Prepaid Phones in the USA. Texting on T-Mobile is cheap. One woman had a Verizon Wireless phone but couldn’t do cross ocean SMS, as Verizon only allowed domestic. I had an ATT phone which did International SMS. The lassie needed to contact a friend in London. She asked me to contact her friend in London. It was a case of dialing International Codes(+011) and the Country Code for the UK followed by the phone #. The message was sent. About 2 hours later, the Lassie texted my phone, thanking me for the sending of the text to London and told me that her friend did call her back. It should be noted that Veruzon now does International SMS.
My 1st SMS was sent on an Ericcson CF 788 in 1997 from a company called OMNIPOINT. Today that company has been absorbed, 1st into VoiceStream and then into T-Mobile. It was great for SMS in 1997 and is still great today. I adopted SMS in November, 1997 and it is 25 Years since the 1st SMS. It was initially only on OMNIPOINT handsets. Later on T-Mobile, with Camera Phones, MMS(Multimedia Message Service) became another way to communicate. This was in 2003.
Today, one can stream video from these phones, live to an audience on YouTube and DailyMotion.
And this all started with SMS.
Happy Christmastide and Happy Chanukkah!
M.
A Roaming Catholic NY 