SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE (SMS)

BY AMIT KUBADE PRN NO.11012

INDEX
OVERVIEW OF SMS BASIC NETWORK ARCHITECTURE OF SMS SMS PROTOCOL SERVICES AND FEATURES SMS SERVICE ELEMENT BASIC SMS CALL FLOW SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE CENTER (SMSC) ADDITIONAL FEATURES AND ISSUES

SMS Overview

SMS stands for Short Message Service SMS was first introduced in 1991 in Europe as a text messaging service based on European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) standards for mobile networks SMS is being used in a wide range of social and business applications such as electronic voting, delivery of stock quotations, delivery of e-mail notification SMS is currently supported on the major mobile network technologies including:

GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) CDMA (Carrier Division Multiplex Access)

SMS supports the sending and receiving of text, images, animation and sound SMS messages are originated and received by Short Messaging Entities (SME). Examples of SMEs are: mobile phones; servers; personal computers

Basic Network Architecture

SME

SMSC

SMS-GMSC/ SMS-IWMSC

MSC/SGSN

MS

Outside the scope of GSM specifications HLR VLR

SMS Protocol Services and Features

SMS allows message delivery to handsets either active/in-use or powered off

Mobile stations receive transport data protocol units (TPDU) denoted as SMS-Deliver Mobile stations send transport data protocol units (TPDU) denoted as SMS-Submit Note: the TPDU contains the user data (the short message)

SMS protocol permits request of message delivery confirmation report SMS messages contain up to 140 octets which is equivalent to:

160 Latin characters (7 Bit Coding) Text Mode 70 Unicode characters (double byte) e.g. Arabic Characters, Chinese Characters SMS messages can also contain up to 140 octets of binary information

SMS messages are transported in the core network using SS7 (Signaling System 7

SMS Service Elements

Validity Period is the service element that indicates the time period for which the SMSC will guarantee the existence of the short message when attempting to deliver it Service Centre Time Stamp is the service element that indicates the time stamp of message arrival at the SMSC Protocol Identifier is the service element in to indicate higher layer protocol or indicates inter-working with certain types of telemetic services (e.g. paging, email) More Messages to Send is the service element by which a SMSC informs the MS that there is one or more messages waiting in the SC to be sent to the MS Priority is the service element indicating that delivery of the message will be attempted regardless of the MS being temporarily absent or having no free memory Message Waiting is the service element that enables the mobile network to provide the HLR, SGSN and VLR with the information that there is a message waiting in the originating SMSC for a MS Alert Service Centre is the service element used by mobile networks to inform an SMSC that a previously unreachable MS (temporarily absent or no memory) is ready to receive messages

BASIC SMS CALL FLOW

End to end SMS transaction completes in 2 parts : 1.Message submission by originating subscriber to its SMSC (Mobile Originating Part) 2.Message delivery by SMSC to recipient Subscriber (Mobile terminating Part)

Short Message Service Centre - SMSC

Short Message service Centre plays a central role in the management of SMS message origination and SMS message delivery Interestingly, detailed functionality of SMSC is outside the scope of standardization, hence several vendor specific products and protocols:
EMI (External Machine Interface) CMG, now LogicaCMG UCP (Universal Computer Protocol) Logica, now LogicaCMG CIMD (Computer Interface to Message Distribution) Nokia OIS (Open Interface Specification) SEMA Group, now Airwide Solutions Computer Access Service and Protocol Ericsson

SMS Forum is an industry initiative to create a common standard SMPP (Short Message Peer-to-Peer) using Internet as the transport network The ETSI/GSM standard does specify minimum mandatory SMSC requirements:

Each SMS-Deliver to a MS must have unique time stamp with one second accuracy Only one outstanding SMS-Deliver (i.e. message for which a report not yet received) If requested by MS or SME, initiate overwriting of previously received short messages

Additional Features and Issues

SMS standard allows concatenation of messages to enable transmission of longer messages (i.e. messages longer than 140 octets) Short Messages may be compressed with algorithms described in GSM 03.42

Compression only applies to user-data and excludes user-data-header If compressed message are greater than 140 octets, then the messages can be concatenated

In North America wireless subscribers can address text messages using 5-digit numbers (short codes)

An example of the use of short codes is for SMS voting One objective of short codes is to reduce or minimize Spam Short codes are being used to price and market services (e.g charge back to application provider)

Service gateway products are available that address multi-network (GSM/CDMA) and multi-protocol (e.g. EMI/OIS) inter-working Security is an emerging concern similar to that with e-mail, for example:

SPAM sending of unsolicited messages and ads via SMS (e.g. to entice users to call numbers that have a high per minute charge) Virus - resend of message to all numbers in the phones address book (e.g. via a Trojan Horse) Identity Theft - retrieval of personal information from a SIM (Subscriber Interface Module) card