Three billion Short Message Service (SMS) messages were sent by the world`s over 200 million GSM cellular users in one month alone.
SMS messages are simple text messages of up to 160 characters that can be sent from cellphones using the GSM standard, the cellular standard used by Vodacom in South Africa and by more than 320 cellular networks worldwide.
"SMS is probably the cheapest form of wireless communication in the world today. It is reliable and becoming easier to use," said Joan Joffe, Group Executive - Corporate Affairs of Vodacom.
At just 68c per SMS send, all Vodacom users, including Vodago prepaid customers are able to send text messages of up to 160 characters to any other GSM cellphone user in South Africa. For the same charge they can also send an SMS from South Africa to anywhere in the world.
"Other features of the SMS service are that users can store up to 15 text messages on their cellphone and that messages can be received even if the cellphone is engaged or switched off," said Ms Joffe.
Ms Joffe said that the 3 billion figure reflected usage during the month of December 1999 and was reported by the GSM Association in February 2000.
The GSM Association forecasts that with current growth trends, a figure of 10 billion messages per month could be expected by year end 2000. In addition, with the advent of new high speed content rich data services, integrated with the Internet, by 2002 wireless data could reach 20 percent of total GSM traffic in advanced markets.
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