Person-to-person text messaging is the most commonly used SMS application and it is what the SMS technology was originally designed for. In these kinds of text messaging applications, a mobile user types an SMS text message using the keypad of his/her mobile phone, then he/she inputs the mobile phone number of the recipient and clicks a certain option on the screen, such as "Send" or "OK", to send the text message out. When the recipient mobile phone receives the SMS text message, it will notify the user by giving out a sound or vibrating. The user can read the SMS text message some time later or immediately and can send a text message back if he/she wants.
A chat application is another kind of person-to-person text messaging application that allows a group of people to exchange SMS text messages interactively. In a chat application, all SMS text messages sent and received are displayed on the mobile phone's screen in order of date and time. SMS text messages written by different mobile users may be displayed in different colors for better readability, like this:
Me: Let's have a meeting at 10 am tomorrow to discuss the details of our next SMS text messaging application.
Tom: OK.
Alan: I have another meeting at 10 am. I suggest having the meeting at 11:30 am tomorrow. What do you think?
Alerts and Notifications
SMS is a very suitable technology for delivering alerts and notifications of important events. This is because of two reasons:
- A mobile phone is a device that is carried by its owner most of the time. Whenever an SMS text message is received, the mobile phone will notify you by giving out a sound or by vibrating. You can check what the SMS text message contains immediately.
- SMS technology allows the "push" of information. This is different from the "pull" model where a device has to poll the server regularly in order to check whether there is any new information. The "pull" model is less suitable for alert and notification applications, since it wastes bandwidth and increases server load.
Email, Fax and Voice Message Notifications
In an email notification system, a server sends a text message to the user's mobile phone whenever an email arrives at the inbox. The SMS text message can include the sender's email address, the subject and the first few lines of the email body. An email notification system may allow the user to customize various filters so that an SMS alert is sent only if the email message contains certain keywords or if the email sender is an important person. The use cases for fax or voice message are similar.
E-commerce and Credit Card Transaction Alerts
Whenever an e-commerce or credit card transaction is made, the server sends a text message to the user's mobile phone. The user can know immediately whether any unauthorized transactions have been made.
Stock Market Alerts
In a stock market alert application, a program is constantly monitoring and analyzing the stock market. If a certain condition is satisfied, the program will send a text message to the user's mobile phone to notify him/her of the situation. For example, you can configure the alert system such that if the stock price of a company is lower than a certain value or drops by a certain percentage, it will send an SMS alert to you
Remote System Monitoring
In a remote system monitoring application, a program (sometimes with the help of a group of sensors) is constantly monitoring the status of a remote system. If a certain condition is satisfied, the program will send a text message to the system administrator to notify him/her of the situation. For example, a program may be written to "ping" a server regularly. If no response is received from the server, the program can send an SMS alert to the system administrator to notify him/her that the server may be hanged.
