Death of an SMS

The year was 2005, when I first entered my Engineering College (Oh, it feels sad to realize that it was nine years ago when I had put my first step in the field of Engineering.Time passes by so quickly making one oblivious to the fact that one is actually growing older every passing day). It was then that I had got my first ever Mobile phone, Nokia 2600 a budget phone with a colour display (an added attraction then).

That was an era of prepaid sim cards and a postpaid card used to be the luxury of the rich. Living on the pocket money and the calling rates being high, we usually suffered from the low balance or for that matter a Zero Balance syndrome. It was when this little angel called the SMS (Short Message Service) came to our rescue.

Being aware of this 'Balance deficiency' amongst the youth the Service providers designed various SMS friendly packs. For e.g..: Recharge with Rs. 51 and get 1000 SMS free. This meant we could actually communicate with others via text messaging even if the talk time available was zero. This was something to be proud of and thus began the Love Affair between the SMS and the Youth.

Be it a Happy Birthday or a Condolence message.

Be it a Happy Diwali or an Id Mubarak.

Be it an I Love You or an I am sorry, this little pigeon carried them all.

SMS was not only a mode of communication but also the mode of entertainment.

Be it a Santa Banta joke or the so called 'Non-Veg' joke, SMS had seen them all.

As time passed by the Mobile Phone became a necessity and the SMS became the part and parcel of our lives.

Hardly had we thought that we have achieved a big milestone in the world of communication when the game changed.

With the advent of technology, mobile phones became 'Smart' and it was now possible to access the whole world of the World Wide Web on this hand held device.

2G, 3G, Wifi (ani Kai kai!!! Meaning: what not) accelerated the speed with which the internet was surfed. Opening new horizons, our mail box, our Skype, our Facebook everything said "Hello" on the smart phone.

But again this did not stop here, with GPRS(General Packet Radio Service) available at a dirt cheap price, many Messaging Services like Whatsapp and Telegram were born. These are in a way a new generation of SMS but being run on the Data Pack and consuming hardly a few bytes, one recharge of a GPRS pack can actually help one with a plethora of messages that too in runtime. One just needs to be online at the same time with another  and these services actually behave like an Online Chat. (The same chat which had once rocked the whole Web arena).

But in this race of fast mode of communication, our old friend SMS somewhere lost its track and moreover as you at least need to pay a small sum for a limited number of SMS, an SMS pack, is never hundred percent free. Also it doesn't run in runtime making it a misfit for the "Last Seen at" loving generation.

Conclusion, SMS has lost its popularity today. This doesn't mean that one doesn't come across SMS at all but if one receives ten SMS today then it is more likely that nine are of telemarketing (yes those good for nothing messages from VM, DM, LM etc.)

Losing its real purpose i.e. of communication, we are in an era when SMS is dead.

But one can never forget the contribution of SMS in the world of communication and thus whenever the history of communication technology will be written; this little angel will have a chapter written on her in Golden Letters.

R.I.P. SMS...