Texting uses the SMS or Short Messaging Service that is available on mobile phones as part of the normal phone service.
SMS is basically available between mobile phones, either between individuals or, like email, to multiple receivers.
It is possible, with business software, to send bulk SMS from a computer to many mobile phones.
It won't work if sent to a land line phone as the land line phone has no method of interpreting the SMS message.
Business Use of SMS
Texting is often used by businesses to advise you of some action or to send security codes.
Examples include:
- Australia Post and Couriers advising a delivery
- Banks sending security codes for transactions
- Businesses making special offers to regular customers
- Trades people advising arrival times
Unfortunately you may also see scammers using SMS so be very diligent in checking that what you see is safe.
See the Security section in the side navigation for more on managing security.
Texting on your mobile phone
Your mobile phone will have a messaging app which will provide for texting.
Essentially SMS is limited to 160 characters however it is possible to continue typing a longer message but costs are associated with each block of 160 characters.
The character limit was the reason that many shortcut abbreviations were developed by users. Like LOL, BTW… etc
If you find yourself often typing much more than the usual size of 160 characters it may be better to use email unless your account allows unlimited texts
MMS - Send a picture
You can add a picture to an SMS text but then the message becomes an MMS - Multimedia Message Service with a possible different cost structure.
It is likely that you can only send one picture with each message.
Texting is handy for a quick message to family, friends or colleagues.
To some degree other apps have provided a more powerful alternative, allowing multiple images to be sent with one message.
Some of these are stand-alone services like Whats App, Signal or Telegraph or messenger services built into products such as Facebook.
See more about this in Social Media topics.
To go to the next basic skill click here