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SOCIETY AND TRENDS: SMS
Short
Medium
The language is telegraphic but the messages are in real time and cost
little. That's why millions are hooked to the cell phone-based messaging
system.
By Natasha Israni
Go4It.
U R 2 good 2 B true. Wan2talk? Or perhaps 13 mera 7, which, uncoded, is
tera mera saath-Hindi for "our togetherness."
Brevity is the soul of SMS, the hot, new kid on the wireless communications
block. So language undergoes condensation to fit the cellular phone format.
The Short Messaging Service is your spelling teacher's nightmare come
true, but it has made prodding keypads more fashionable than yapping into
handsets. The first fad of the new millennium is upon us.
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JOHN AZARIAH, CTO,COGNOS
Used
SMS to contact his uncontactable relatives in Germany when his father
was admitted to hospital in a critical condition.
C U 2morrow
(See you tomorrow)
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"While I send around 50 messages to friends
and family every day when I'm in Mumbai, it's a more frequent thing when
I'm travelling and can't afford to make those expensive STD and ISD calls,"
says Shehnaz Treasurywalla, MTV veejay and backpacker, an admirer of the
SMS for two reasons: it allows her to write (in real time) rather than
speak, a mode of communication she prefers, and it's cheaper by far than
phone calls. Re 1-1.50 for an outgoing message to anywhere on the planet
with incoming ones free is great value for money. Especially when the
cost of receiving a call on the cell phone still hovers around Re 1.50
at the least, and making a call costs far more.
SMS is where phone meets e-mail, with the rider
that messages are limited to a maximum of 160 characters. Adding the service
is a simple matter for the provider, who merely needs to hook up to a
short message service centre to route the SMS messages. Channels previously
used only for machine language communication-essentially binary coded
information-between cell phones are used to carry the data. Since no extra
bandwidth is required and no fresh data or signalling channels need to
be established, the costs of setting up the service are not high.
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PIA DESHPANDE, STUDENT
Messages
to stay in tune with pals. She says SMS is a relationship-building
tool which brings cheer especially as it can carry emoticons.
? R U
(which is 'How are you')
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Service providers are now adding chatrooms and
it is possible to follow hyperlinks from the phone. In Mumbai, BPL has
introduced a chat service, Michat, which is being used by more than 10,000
users daily. Says BPL Mobile Communications coo B.P. Singh: "Michat
is appealing because one can chat even on the move." Another obvious
advantage is that messaging uses a communication channel separate from
voice. After the Gujarat earthquake when the mobile voice communication
network was choked by a 25-30 fold increase in the number of calls, worried
folks took to messaging instead.
A lot of people are taking to messaging in normal
times too. Already, 10 lakh mobile phone messages originate every day
in Delhi alone. Last month an enthusiastic SMS fan sent 8,000 messages
in Mumbai. Service providers are obviously optimistic.
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PRIYANKA CHOPRA, MISS WORLD
Thinks
it is rude to make calls during meetings so she discreetly sends
out SMS messages instead, "especially to make appointments".
LTSINTRJBAB
(Let's interface baby)
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Says Sandip Das, CEO, Orange, a Mumbai cellular
service provider: "Our revenue from SMS is only 1.5 per cent of the
turnover at this point, which could become 7 to 10 per cent in six months
to a year." He too is an avid user: his communicator beeps with messages
from his wife about their kids even as he is reeling off the figures.
Out of 2,70,000 Orange subscribers in Mumbai, 1,50,000 are regular SMS
users and the service adds 20,000 new users every month. Most are in the
18-30 age group but others are catching on.
Even grandpas now send messages like "?
R U". Utility has conferred a universal acceptability to schoolboy
jargon. So much so that The Guardian in England even organised a text
message poetry competition. The move has sparked off a debate on whether
proficiency in a half-language only a few years old can be elevated to
an art. That a certain amount of inventiveness is required to come up
with the mightily condensed expressions is obvious. And the inventiveness
is not limited to English-Gujarati users, for one, have evolved their
own shorthand. Sample this: "2 VIP 6? 92 nahi banavo." Even
speakers of the tongue can give themselves a pat on the back if they guess
that this stands for "Tu VIP chhe? Bahano nahi banavo". Translation:
"You think you're a VIP? Don't make excuses." India's myriad
languages are in for a technological transmogrification driven by convenience.
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RAJ BARUA, STUDENT
Says
it gives him the freedom to fix up dates more easily. Being unobtrusive
it can be used even from classrooms.
100RY
(Sorry)
10DUL
100 N/O (Tendulkar 100 not out)
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Convenience is a compelling reason for SMS' popularity.
Miss World Priyanka Chopra thinks it is rude to make calls during meetings
so she discreetly sends out SMS messages instead, "especially to
make appointments." For John Azariah, CTO of Cognos Infotech, Bangalore,
the service has been more than mere convenience. When his father was admitted
to hospital in a critical condition, he had no other way of contacting
his relatives who were in Germany in a hurry. So he sent an SMS and "within
a few minutes my cell phone was ringing. My aunt in Germany had contacted
her sister in England and both were on the phone to me". Archana
Verma, a Mumbai-based public-relations executive, has also seen the saving
power of SMS though in a different context. During a client presentation
she remembers being desperate to remind a colleague of a critical point.
She couldn't take him aside though. "So I sent him a quiet SMS instead.
In my line of work, communication is not just important, it's crucial,"
she says.
The medium is the messiah in some pretty unlikely
situations too. Some time ago, Anuradha Bagchi, manager at a Kolkata hotel,
messaged her brother in Delhi. He was in a restaurant at the time and
had gotten himself into a piquant situation: a blind date whom he had
a powerful desire to run away from, but couldn't. He took the opportunity
to pour out his angst to her.
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