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In 1984 were called car phones or PBX, and who in the B-net one of the well-Pleasure 25,000 callers wanted to call, had to know what area of the straight gurkte. Because at that time had only the right area code - for mobile phones in the Munich area, for example, the 089th During this time engineer mused Friedhelm Hillebrand at the Bundespost in Bonn, if anyone ever have an interest in might, cell phone text messages to send.
Since 1982, the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) in a European mobile phone standard (GSM), and engineering Hillebrand discussed for the federal post in various forums. In an interview with blogs ONLINE remembers the 69-year-old: "From 1984 onwards, we have in Germany and France thought about what services you apart from the language in the D-network could offer."
Who needs 128 characters text?
First, the engineers dreaming of a pager service for the new digital network. But the transmission of long text messages would have been too expensive. "The language was at the forefront," sagtIngenieur Hillebrand. "The standards were to the Telephony function optimized. Additional services should be implemented cheaply, without much effort and demands on the technology."
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Without much effort were text 128 characters in it, nothing more. To transfer one could use a second channel that is actually for occasional information about the signal strength and other properties of service was designed. This channel was already scheduled for GSM, but would probably remain mostly untapped - the ideal base for a cheap edge service. With a few tricks made it technicians later, the maximum character length on the famous 160 on increase.
But what should be in such short messages have to write? Hillebrand describes the debates in the GSM working group says: "We have been asked about whether there is any benefit. Money for costly market studies, we did not." So the engineers relied on something that Hillebrand today "reasonableness test" is you look at postcards and telexes - and included the characters of the message.
SMS models: fax, telex, postcard
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Result: "People can be very much in 160 characters to express and do well," says Hillebrand. That he did in the eighties also fax observed: "There were often very brief handwritten fax sent messages, or short answers, which you find on a received fax noted." The beautiful legend (on Sunday in the "
Los Angeles Times "evidence), he had a typewriter on a lot of 160-character phrases typed in order to test the concept contradicts Hillebrand, however.
From early 1984 until ideas become the basis of the SMS service, as he does today, then it took another five years. The first version of the final standard was adopted in early 1989. In the many engineers working groups were active, the next one Hillebrand as equal SMS inventor must call: Bernard Ghillebaert (by the French PTT), Finn Trosby (Telenor), Kevin Holly of Cellnet and Vodafone by Ian Harris. Trosby writes in an essay on the Norwegian magazine "Telektronikk": "No expert and no company can claim for himself, the father or inventor of a service or a major function of GSM to be."
SMS visions, videotext terminals and Acknowledgment
With some of the colleagues of those days writes engineer Hillebrand just a book about the SMS history. End of the year, "Short Message Service: The creation of global text messaging" is being published.
One of the first documents in which the SMS is described (GSM Doc 19/85), was formed at a meeting of the CEPT in Oslo early 1985. The brief description of the services in the GSM mobile communications system to be offered "as mentioned under point 3.3. the "Short Message Transmission". In 13 lines, the text describes how we know it today. However, there is the potential transmission via Teletext terminals, "the speech. Explicitly, the passage also still so popular, an acknowledgment of messages.
In the CEPT working paper 28/85 GSM rev 2. " June 1985 is still the message with 128 characters. This technical brief, the developer was a "restriction" is felt, Hillebrand says, "This is quite unexpected for us is extremely positive: The short format favors the one dialogue. Somehow the other hand, stimulates the creativity of the people."
Global GSM thanks
According to the industry association Bitkom, customers in the German mobile networks 2008 good 29 billion short messages sent. With such a success in the eighties had nobody expected Hillebrand remembers: "We thought when possible especially to car phones. No one imagined then, that ubiquitous GSM devices and would be disseminated around the world."
The prerequisite for the SMS boom, the technicians have yet created. Because SMS part of the GSM standard, you can make with all devices in all and between all networks, send messages and be sure that they arrive, as they have posted. As a worldwide GSM wireless standard, you can people even from continent to continent, send text messages.
As ledges was free
Thus, Hillebrand just as expected with the subject of some SMS: "I am impressed today when I read the works of German literature, the SMS Love Poems analyze. I have never expected. Even with the commercial success."
At the start of the GSM networks in the early 90s SMS initially served mainly to provide information on new voicemail. Engineer Hillebrand: "SMS was with some providers such as E-Plus initially even completely free of charge. Later, SMS charges there was a small rebellion, but people are willing to pay for it. They feel the service as useful."
Hillebrand has his first written SMS 1993 on a Nokia 2110th What he had typed, he knows no more. Today simst Hillebrand daily with his BlackBerry. Whether the e-mail function of the BlackBerry crowd is not the message, so he answered: "No.. An SMS is direct, personal, immediate, because everyone in his cellphone, but not always sitting at the computer. I use SMS, despite mobile e -mail is still very often, that is another communication. "
And the edge is a product. Finn Trosby describes the evolution in retrospect as "the Gerburt the SMS was not a coincidence and not a misfortune, even if the concept of 1987 have not been very clear. Fortunately, no one has the SMS service from the list."
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