Hey #iQOO fans!

Did you know the world's first text message was written in 1992? Yes, and now the telecom company Vodafone is going to auction this SMS as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT). It is expected to fetch more than £150,000, according to the Daily Mail report.

Who created the Short Message Service?

The late Matti Makkonen, a Finnish mobile communications engineer, is widely believed to be the father of SMS. But although he was an integral part of the process, he didn't single-handedly invent the technology.

Instead, it was a multi-national collaboration effort. The concept came about in 1984-1985 when Bernard Ghillebaert and Friedhelm Hillebrand created GSM documents: the standards for text messaging.

When was the first text message sent?

The first-ever text message was sent on 3 December 1992 by Neil Papworth, a young software programmer from the UK.

It was sent from a computer to the Orbitel 901 cell phone of Neil's colleague, Richard Jarvis of Vodafone.

Vodafone was one of the key service providers involved in SMS development, while Nokia introduced the first texting feature on phones in 1993. Other networks followed suit, although it wasn't until 1999 that cross-network text messaging was made possible.

What was the first SMS content?

Neil Papworth decided to make the world's first text message remarkably short and sweet; it just said, 'Merry Christmas'.

However, although the message itself was simple, it marked a pivotal moment in mobile communications history, just like the world's first phone call.

The invention of text messaging gave us a fast and convenient way of reaching friends and family and provided a substitute for voice calls. Yet, the adoption of SMS technology took a little time.

In 1995, only 0.4 texts were sent per GSM customer per month, partly due to operators being slow to set up and perfect charging systems.

Fast forward to 2007, however, and SMS became the most widely used data service, with 75% of worldwide mobile users actively texting. And in 2010, 200,000 text messages were sent every minute, and 6.1 trillion texts were sent globally, according to the International Telecommunications Union.

When do you send your first text message (SMS)? Comment below.

I hope this thread was informative. I'll catch you soon with another topic. Do share your opinions below in the comments section.

Regards,

Sharon Anto