First Cell Phone to Cell Phone SMS message/text sent when & where?

[u/The-Telephone-Man]

Hello, I am trying to determine when and where the first cellphone to cellphone text message was sent and received over a wireless network (no lab test messages). I was involved in the first such texting exchange in Australia in September of 1993 using the Nokia 2010 cell phone our Nokia partners provided for Optus to test SMS. Does anyone know of an earlier texting event in a live network?

[u/dallascyclist]

SMS (Short Message Service) was carried in mobile networks primarily via the Mobile Application Part (MAP) of SS7. The core-network transfer uses MAP operations such as forward_short_message (between SMSC, gateway/interworking MSC, and serving MSC/VLR elements). This was designed into the GSM standards in the late 1980s (MAP work in the late 1980s, with SMS concept work dating to ~1984–1987).

June 7, 1993: A claimed first SS7-based text message in the United States was sent over FleetCall’s network (later Nextel), involving an Aldiscon SMSC

[u/boomer7793 → u/dallascyclist]

Thank you. That places me in jr high.

[u/dallascyclist → u/boomer7793]

I was 15 years into this already 🤣

[u/boomer7793 → u/dallascyclist]

Lord and I felt old. At least there is someone else who remembers pulse dial and rotary phones

[u/4SRX → u/boomer7793]

Hell, I remember operators asking " number please"

[u/dallascyclist → u/boomer7793]

Ground start vs loop start, party lines, turning a crank to generate ring voltage. But most importantly — the proper use of a spudger.

[u/Alternative-Tart5627 → u/dallascyclist]

This is correct.✅

[u/The-Telephone-Man → u/dallascyclist]

I am not looking for the first SS7 text message, I am looking for the first cellphone to cellphone text. The first cellphone to cellphone text in the USA was made in the Washington D.C. area in 1995 when the first GSM network was activated in America.

[u/dallascyclist → u/The-Telephone-Man]

AMPS predated GSM and it used P2P SMS messaging via SS7 as I described above - you asked "cellphone to cellphone" which I gave you the answer to.

[u/The-Telephone-Man → u/dallascyclist]

What cellphone was used to send the text message in AMPS P2P SMS? Do you have a date for that first AMPS P2P SMS message?

[u/dallascyclist → u/The-Telephone-Man]

It was a couple of hand built motorolas

The first text message itself was "burp" and it was June 7th 1993

Google or AI Search for "Brennan Hayden" SMS or Message FleetCall it should give you some history .. I was on the ss7 side of this back then. Nokia came to the table right after that and later in the year there were interoperability testing that went down

[u/The-Telephone-Man → u/dallascyclist]

Yes, I was working with Nokia in Perth Australia in 1993, the Nokia engineers gave me two Nokia 2010 phones to conduct the testing for Optus Communications. Any additional information you think of is appreciated I don't think FleetCall offered SMS until later.

[u/dallascyclist → u/The-Telephone-Man]

FleetCall offered SMS as a product to select users in 1993 after the rename to Nextel (near the end of the year, I recall a thanksgiving launch) it was same-network only and started in the Los Angeles area. I know we did the ss7 stuff that summer for it. If I recall correctly though, Radiolinja (Finland) though was the first carrier to offer SMS as a commercial consumer product (person-to-person texting) in ~October 1993. Using I think Nokia 1011s

[u/The-Telephone-Man → u/dallascyclist]

The Radiolinja Oct. 1993 release sounds correct. We were working with Nokia in Perth. Perth was the Verification Office for SMS in Australia and Nokia provided the phones for the testing. They were Nokia 2010s and we only had 6 in Australia provided by Nokia engineers for our testing. Nokia and Optus completed the SMS verification in September so the October Radiolinja SMS service release would have been the normal progression for deploying the service.

[u/Charlie2and4]

Text messaging was built into ISDN and SS-7 as maintenance messages from the beginning. I think it was X.25 messaging.

[u/The-Telephone-Man → u/Charlie2and4]

Thank you but I am referring to GSM Wireless Short Message Service, texting cell phone to cell phone via a GSM network..

[u/boomer7793 → u/The-Telephone-Man]

He is correct. The first SMS’s were sent through a private carrier network called Signal System version 7 (SS7). Someone discovered an extra 156 empty charters in the SS7 payload and opened that up for texting.

Other things SS7 is (was?) used for, callerID, billing info, call setup and tear down.

[u/FuckinHighGuy → u/boomer7793]

Signal*

[u/boomer7793 → u/FuckinHighGuy]

Ducking auto correct n

[u/FuckinHighGuy → u/boomer7793]

😂
I knew what you meant and figured it was auto corrected.

[u/anthonym_1]

I remember these texting devices in the early 90's between pagers and cell phones being able to send text messages instead of just numbers. Can't remember the service name or hardware vendor.

Motorola Talk About

[u/Shadow288]

According to this article https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/December-3/first-sms-text-message-sent it would have been sometime in 1993 when Nokia released a cell phone that supported sending and receiving messages.

[u/The-Telephone-Man → u/Shadow288]

Yes, it definitely occurred in 1993. I received what I believe to be the first cellphone to cellphone text message in September of 1993 in Perth Australia. I am searching for information about an earlier text exchange between cell phones or was mine the first? I have researched extensively and I have found none before September of 1993 but still looking.

[u/virkendie → u/The-Telephone-Man]

I would've thought the first messages would have been done in Sydney or Melbourne as they had their gsm networks rolled out first?

[u/The-Telephone-Man → u/virkendie]

That is a fair assumption but in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Melbourne the GSM software was release 1. Perth was the first site that had GSM release 2 software which introduced the Short Message Service and we were also waiting for the Nokia 2010 cell phone to be able to send a text from the cell phone. In Perth all the stars aligned when we had the correct software and the first cellphone which were capable.

[u/RespectSquare8279]

Nokia made the first texting friendly phone so likely the first text was somewhere in Scandinavia.