32 years ago today, personal communication changed forever
 

• The first SMS text message was sent on December 3, 1992.
• Part of an early Vodafone test, the message was sent from a computer to a GSM handset on the carrier’s network.
• That first text read: “Merry Christmas.”

Right now, text messaging is better than it’s ever been. Don’t get us wrong — there’s still ample room for improvement — but with RCS really coming into its own, especially in terms of iOS RCS adoption, the state of the communication landscape today is a vast improvement over what it looked like just a few years back. We’re thinking about this momentum in particular today because of the significance of the date, as we celebrate the anniversary of the first text message ever sent.

In the early ’90s, cell phones were just starting to flirt with the idea of going digital, and the very first GSM networks entered testing. Beyond just supporting digital voice calls, these networks allowed devices to begin communicating with each other by sending small text strings — this was the beginning of the Short Message Service, or SMS. And on December 3, 1992, the first SMS text alert popped up on the screen of a cell phone. This was still so early that we wouldn’t even get an audible “ding” with an incoming text for another year.




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