SMS stands for Short Messaging Service and initially referred to text messages sent using a specific GSM protocol. MMS is an acronym for Multimedia Messaging Service.

Both SMS and MMS are based on GSM protocols, SMS is designed for sending text messages while MMS messages were designed to send multimedia content. The MMS messages can include any type of multimedia including: photos, audio, videos or contacts.

While SMS messages are based on 160 characters, MMS messages do not have any character restrictions. However most carriers, can not reliably manage and transmit multimedia messages (MMS messages) larger than 300 KB in size.

Article Date: August 6, 2020