Database Develop

SMS size tweak?

Does anybody know how to change/tweak the actual maximum size of a sms? I know that my network should be cabable of sending / receiving messages up to 750 characters... but the standard WM6 client only accepts 160 characters and would split additional chars into several sms.
Any ideas?

licht77 said:
Does anybody know how to change/tweak the actual maximum size of a sms? I know that my network should be cabable of sending / receiving messages up to 750 characters... but the standard WM6 client only accepts 160 characters and would split additional chars into several sms.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Network capapbilities have no bearing on SMS (Short Message Service), it is the SMS protocol itself that limits the message size.
"Transmission of short messages between the SMSC and the handset is done using the Mobile Application Part (MAP) of the SS7 protocol. Messages are sent with the MAP mo- and mt-ForwardSM operations, whose payload length is limited by the constraints of the signalling protocol to precisely 140 octets (140 octets = 140 * 8 bits = 1120 bits). Short messages can be encoded using a variety of alphabets: the default GSM 7-bit alphabet (shown below), the 8-bit data alphabet, and the 16-bit UTF-16/UCS-2 alphabet.[19] Depending on which alphabet the subscriber has configured in the handset, this leads to the maximum individual Short Message sizes of 160 7-bit characters, 140 8-bit characters, or 70 16-bit characters. Support of the GSM 7-bit alphabet is mandatory for GSM handsets and network elements,[19] but characters in languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Slavic languages (e.g. Russian) must be encoded using the 16-bit UCS-2 character encoding (see Unicode). Routing data and other metadata is additional to the payload size."

ah ok thx for the information...
in that case those long x-mas sms i received were simply concated

licht77 said:
ah ok thx for the information...
in that case those long x-mas sms i received were simply concated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perhaps you know something that I don't. I was just trying to be helpful...

if a message is sent in multiple parts, if your handest supports it correctly it will join it back up when you receive it, for example WM6 supports it on Orange UK, and i've recevied a 4 page (160 * 4) character text all in one single message! the sender sent it in 4 parts
hope that clears it up a little

By the way, isn't it about time they adopt a new protocol? SMS made sense like 10 years ago, with those 1-line displays.

Smaniac said:
By the way, isn't it about time they adopt a new protocol? SMS made sense like 10 years ago, with those 1-line displays.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True.. but that is up to the service providers. you gotta realize they're out to make money off each message.. Kinda sucks if you accidentally type 161 chars..
What i noticed tho is that if someone sends our ppcs texts that are more than 1 message they still come as one message.

SH4YD33 said:
True.. but that is up to the service providers. you gotta realize they're out to make money off each message.. Kinda sucks if you accidentally type 161 chars..
What i noticed tho is that if someone sends our ppcs texts that are more than 1 message they still come as one message.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, I think most phones today do that, at least my old Symbian one did and my current Linux one does too, they concatenate the multiple messages. What I'm worried about is exactly the price. Even though I never paid for an SMS in my life (my provider has SMS bonuses for pre-paid plans), some people do pay and they use it a lot.

Smaniac said:
Yep, I think most phones today do that, at least my old Symbian one did and my current Linux one does too, they concatenate the multiple messages. What I'm worried about is exactly the price. Even though I never paid for an SMS in my life (my provider has SMS bonuses for pre-paid plans), some people do pay and they use it a lot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WinMob phones Don't do that. My old Symbian one did it too. But, my old P910 did several things that my Tilt can't.

GilesTheAlmighty said:
if a message is sent in multiple parts, if your handest supports it correctly it will join it back up when you receive it, for example WM6 supports it on Orange UK, and i've recevied a 4 page (160 * 4) character text all in one single message! the sender sent it in 4 parts
hope that clears it up a little
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the clarification.

SMS restricted to 160 characters?

Seems SMS messages are restricted to 160 characters on my Diamond, anything over and it goes into a second SMS. Is there a way to extend this?
I've searched the forum, but I couldn't find a solution... either that or my searching skills are nil points

even if you changed it on your end. the received phone would still split the message.

You sure? I don't understand. I could type bigger texts than this on my old phones. Isn't there new versions of SMS that support more characters that have been out for a few years now? Or am I missing something?

hoolak said:
You sure? I don't understand. I could type bigger texts than this on my old phones. Isn't there new versions of SMS that support more characters that have been out for a few years now? Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is called email
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_message_service

SMS is restricted to 160 characters each message. That isn't something with the Diamond but a limitation of the protocol -always, on every phone-. that's why it is called SMS: "SHORT message service".
Most modern phones, including the Diamond, are sending multiple messages to overcome this limit. In most cases the receiving phones are able to combine those segmented messages.
So, perhaps some settings (on you Diamond, or more likely on the other end) are mixed up.

So I just ignore the fact I can type text messages over 160 characters on my old LG/Sony phones without having to send two messages and get used to the fact my futuristic Diamond can't?

aaah, maybe it's an optical illusion. I just feel I'm having to send shorter text since getting this phone. Maybe I should reduce my font text size to help me from feeling/seeing things lol. Excuse my loco'ness.

As I said, your Diamond will overcome this restriction by dividing your text in seperate messages, you have to do nothing, just type what you want to type. If you are not able to do so, search for any relevant settings. I guess your Diamond isn't much different from mine, and mine is intelligent enough to do the job on its own.

Yeah, it will go over 160. So, if I do, the recipient will receive two (or more) text messages?

hoolak said:
Yeah, it will go over 160. So, if I do, the recipient will receive two (or more) text messages?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Techically: yes. But he/she also did with messages send with your old phone. It all depends on the phone and settings used by the recipient if it actually shows up as seperate messages or if they will be combined again.

cheers. I shall put it to the test by text my girlfriends phone! Huzzah!

Succes! (and as this forum has a restriction of AT LEAST 10 characters, I type some nonsense as well )

Just send an MMS, its cheaper than two SMS (at least with my german contract) and you can send 300KB of text. That should cover even the longest short message ;-)

Well my phone contract allows me unlimited text messages (sms). I just didn't want to confuse ppl with my 2 part texts.

I did the test. Sent a text 180-odd characters long (Diamond said '2 messages').. received on a Sony Ericsson all contained in 1 text message. Damn you Diamond for making me flap.

You really don';t get it do you?
When you had to pay for your sms, you'd get really expensive.
Technically, in the 'mobile phone world', a SMS-message CAN NOT BE longer than 160 characters.
Not a single phone can do that.
So when your girls phone sais 1 message, it cleverly combines your 2 sent messages.
Send it to a ericsson t28

No, I really didn't get it, but now I do thanks to my thirst for knowledge and the helpful people of this forum.
Sorry if my lack of SMS protocol knowledge appauled you

SMS 160 Character Increase?

With the new lineup of full keyboard phone, texting 160 characters if pretty easy to do, especially when your friends don't like to talk on the phone and strictly text. Has anybody found a registry hack to allow more than 160 characters? For instance, the woman has sent numerous texts to me and she has AT&T as do i, and there has been messages she sends that are well over 500 characters on her Pantech and it allows it.

phones already do this
you can send larger txts but your carrier charges you one text per 160 characters.
or you could use email

I have unlimited text so it really doesn't matter to me how many text messages I have in a month. Anybody?

bratch15 said:
I have unlimited text so it really doesn't matter to me how many text messages I have in a month. Anybody?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just keep typing then - the messages get sent in 160 character blocks, and re-assembled into one big message by the recipient's phone.
Cheers,
Steve.

I guess what I'm asking is that when you go over 160 characters the phone splits the messages into two or however many messages. I've seen my woman type in messages that are well over 500 characters and when sent it shows up as one long message on her phone and on mine. Is there a way to increase the 160 character cut off so I can keep typing and send to other phones and they will see one long message? I'm sure shes getting charged for a couple message but the actually reading the message shows up as one long message.

Alright, thanks. Did not know that it does that so I end up erasing sentences and sending multiple messages. Sucks especially when you're fighting and trying to get a point across but now I know.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/images/smilies/smile.gif Well if you send your message n the form of an MMS then you'll have 1000 letters you can use. And if there's no media n the message then' you might b able to send a longer message!!!!http://forum.xda-developers.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif Hope that's helps your problem.. That's how I send a long message so it doesn't get broken up n2 separate message's.

I think its built into threading
I've seen my woman type in messages that are well over 500 characters and when sent it shows up as one long message on her phone and on mine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It happens when I text from my phone to anyone who has threading support for a windows mobile 6.1 phone
If you type above 160 characters in a regular SMS the person receiving it will get it as one message if they have a phone that supports it. If someone sends me a text with a Moto razr it will be split into 160 character messages instead of one long one
As Bajanman mms messages can hold more letters because it is data related unlike text messaging which rely on a back channel for cellular networks which costs the company 0 dollars to send as long as it is exactly 160 characters haha how ironic they charge us for something that was discovered to be free to the cell phone companies. Thank god for those unlimited texting plans that include the mms messages.

Doesn't send more than 160 characters by sms

If the text message I send exceeds 160 characters, it throws "Your text message cannot be sent" and send only the first 160 characters. But I am able to receive text messages more than 160 characters.
I tried hard reset still the same. Please help !!!

An sms is by definition 160 characters or less
That rather abitrary number was decided on when that tech was new. They didn't see anyone needing more. That being said, I can still write a message that is longer, but it gets sent in multiples sms's. I'm with at&t and even when I had the stock rom, this was possible. The problem could be a restriction set in your ROM, or by your carrier.
Is this a new issue, or one that has always been there?

I started using this phone recently so I can't tell. But I understand that this is something to do with EMS changes in the registry.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa919404.aspx

jameybond said:
If the text message I send exceeds 160 characters, it throws "Your text message cannot be sent" and send only the first 160 characters. But I am able to receive text messages more than 160 characters.
I tried hard reset still the same. Please help !!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try this:
in Messaging select TOOLS-->OPTIONS-->Tap text Messages.
uncheck the Use unicode when neccesary

thank you. you help me too

crissg said:
That rather abitrary number was decided on when that tech was new. They didn't see anyone needing more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That number was not aritrary. It was the amount of unused space that was available in the control channel packets. Someone decided that space could be used to send short messages in the control channel packets and would result in no extra overhead in the amount of data being sent and received. They may or may not have "saw" needing more but it didn't really matter since that's all that's available in each packet.
However, "concatinated SMS" does allow for a larger packet by sending multiple SMS messages, each with a sequence number. The phone receives each SMS message and put them back in the order according to the sequence number. Phones that don't handle concatinated SMS simply display the individual messages as seperate ones.

i still have the same problem, does any one know how to solve that problem ???

How come SMS change to MMS?

How come when the sms message gets too long, it will be converted to MMS? How do I solve this problem?

bryant_16 said:
How come when the sms message gets too long, it will be converted to MMS? How do I solve this problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think your confused.. Im going to assume your trying to send a picture and it says its too large so its converting it to an mms right?

Actually, he's right. On my G1 when I hit so many characters (usually by the end of the 3rd set of 160) it changes to MMS. The reason it does this is so the network can better handle the message. Sending as 3 seperate texts would take more time for the network to submit, store, and resend, than 1 MMS message would.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bryant_16 View Post
How come when the sms message gets too long, it will be converted to MMS? How do I solve this problem?
I think your confused.. Im going to assume your trying to send a picture and it says its too large so its converting it to an mms right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No he isnt confused, when you sent a text that goes over a certain amount of characters it converts it into a mms, i dont think you can stop it from converting it but what you can do is send multiple text massages under the conversion limit

Oh okay, so there is nothing I can do about it?

Not really no. Just when you get to a certain limit and the counter appears showing how many characters you have left, just send it, and start on the next one

Send shorter messages, send an email or IM...
SMS converts to MMS when it gets 3 messages long..it has a character count so stop right before it converts and send it and continue in a new text

ok you want to rid this problem but i would like my tilt to do this aoutmaticly, any way?

Yeah, download HandCent SMS application. It will solve this application.