In December of 1992, Neil Papworth a young contract developer working for Vodafone sent the very first SMS message in the UK . The message was a simple one, "Merry Christmas" and it was sent to Richard Jarvis, a director at Vodafone. Richard Jarvis received the message on a Husky Orbitel 901 cell phone. The phone at that time weighed 4.5 lbs. The message was not sent from another cell phone, but from a computer.

It is probably difficult for the current generation to imagine a world without texting. However, like many new technologies initial adoption for text messaging was slow. This was due in part to technology limitations. Initially SMS messages had to be kept very short, only 160 characters could be sent in each message. Additionally, messages could not be sent across networks (to other providers), there were also hardware limitations to cell phones. In 1997 Nokia became the first cell phone manufacturer to develop a cell phone with a full keyboard it was the Nokia 9000i Communicator.

Overtime, the ease of use, accessibility, and ability to send messages across networks made text messaging common place. It can even be argued, that text messaging and cell phones have changed social norms and how we communicate today.

Article Date: April 25, 2020