SANDY TECHFANATIC

SMS or Short Messaging Service is more than just a widely popular medium of communication between individuals. I’m not going to pretend that you, my readers, are children and need to be told more about it. We all know what texting means and what it involves. But I’d like to delve into some uses other than the obvious. Most of you will know what I’m talking about, but this feature is meant for those who may not, so please bear with me.

Information Superhighway?
There are plenty of websites that ask you to provide your mobile number in case you’d like to be aware of whatever’s going on at that site. There are also various services that mobile users can sign up with via their own service providers that allow them to keep in touch with current events via a simple SMS message. Think of it as a kind of RSS feed for those who don't own a WAP- or GPRS-enabled handset, or those who prefer a simpler way.

A SMS message, as most of you probably know, can have only up to a maximum of 170 characters. So you can’t expect to receive a whole news story. In such cases the service rendered would be in the form of a headline and usually a link that allows you to go to the web page where you can read the whole story from your web browser.

E-mail via SMS
A company called NETCORE has come up with a rather ingenious way by which users who don’t use Internet-capable handsets can send and receive e-mail. The solution is really quite simple. You can sign up with the company that provides this service for an annual fee ranging (from Rs 299 and Rs 999) and a monthly fee of Rs 25 to Rs 85 per month. This will allow you to receive and send a certain number of e-mails for that month. The good thing is each message can have up to 450 characters instead of the usual 170.

You can receive your entire e-mail on your handset and send replies as well. Again, you DON’T need an Internet-enabled handset; it works by simple SMS and it works perfectly with ISPs or mailing solutions, including MS Exchange, Lotus Notes, or any Linux-based solution. It’s like having a BlackBerry without the BlackBerry!