SMS in UMTS is sent using the SRB. At a logical level this is the DCCH.

From a transport level this can be mapped to FACH or DCH (or if you are using SRB over HS on your network even the HS-DSCH can be used). At a physical level this is mapped on to the DPDCH (in case of DCH transport channel) or the SCCPCH (in case the UE happens to be in CELL_FACH and listening to the FACH). I am not really a core network guy, but from a core network perspective the SMSC is connected to a MSC(s). The SMS is forwarded to the MSC which then uses the IuCS interface to forward the SMS to the RNC. From there on the paragraph above applies. If the UE is IDLE then it will have to be paged to set up the RRC connection (with the associated SRB). If the UE is in FACH it will be paged with a Paging message Type 2 to send the Paging Response required to set-up the IuCS connection. If the UE is in DCH state with an ongoing CS connection (i.e. speech) it will be sent using the existing IuCS connection and no paging is required. If the UE is in DCH state with a PS connection the same as FACH applies. Hopefully this makes sense..