Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve been hearing about new capabilities for emergency 911 services for years, but it looks like the industry is ready to move as one to make text-to-911 a reality across the US. The Big 4 wireless carriers, as well as The 911 Association and the Association for Public-Safety Communications Officials International has submitted an agreement to the FCC that outlines plans to work together on standards, procedures and technology deployments that will provide a “seamless introduction” of the tech across the US.

They’re not guaranteeing it will be available everywhere in two years, but the specific signposts noted are support for bounce-back notifications by June 30th, 2013 that tell texters when the service isn’t available in their area and a “commitment” to nationwide rollouts by May 15th 2014. So far, efforts to make your thumbs more useful in an emergency have been disjointed, but a concerted effort by industry giants should let you avoid busy signals and dropped calls at the worst possible time sooner rather than later. Check out a press release from the group, as well as a word from the FCC, which will consider the proposal on December 12th, after the break or the agreement itself in PDF form at the source link.

Continue reading Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile agree to collectively push text-to-911 capabilities by 2014

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile

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Source: Voluntary Text Commitment (PDF), FCC

Law enforcement representatives from both the state and local level have submitted a proposal to the US Congress that would require mobile carriers in the US to keep SMS logs for all users for at least two years, just in case they’re eventually needed for future criminal investigations. The law enforcement reps say that the lack of a current requirement “can hinder law enforcement investigations.”

Lawmakers are currently considering amending the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act in order to make it more relevant in today’s internet era, and the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association and other enforcement groups want to have a say during the amendment. They argue that text messaging conversations often contain evidence that can be vital to investigations, and current policies among US cellular providers are claimed to be inadequate.

Currently, most carriers store rudimentary data for text messages from the past few months, but the actual content of the text messages are usually only held onto for a few days. According to a Justice Department memo from last year, Verizon stores detailed SMS logs for between three and five days, while AT&T and T-Mobile keep no such records whatsoever. Carriers might have changed their policies since then, but regardless, standardizing a new logging practice for a specific amount of time would give law enforcement agencies confidence that the logs are there if they need them.

Obviously, this will no doubt spark privacy concerns, and the privacy advocates will be out in full force. While your text messages will most likely not be bothered with as long as you’re a good boy or girl, knowing that carriers and law enforcement have access to your detailed SMS logs from the past two years certainly isn’t assuring.

[via CNET]

Police tell Congress they want carriers keeping SMS logs for two years is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It was on December 3, 1992, when the first text message in the world was sent in the UK. Neil Papworth, who is an engineer working in the UK back then, had the honor of sending the first SMS in the world, and instead of something geekier like “Hello, World”, it read a plain and simple “Merry Christmas.” Of course, it must be interesting to note that for humans, most of us would be entering our prime at the age of 20, but for the text message (or SMS, depending on what floats your boat), it could very well be in its twilight years – or at least have gone over the hill.

Papworth mentioned, “It happened that day that Vodafone wanted to try sending a message to Richard Jarvis, one of the directors there, who was at a Christmas party. So we sat at the computer and typed him a message and then sent him the message ‘Merry Christmas. For me it was just another day’s testing, it didn’t seem to be anything big at the time.”

Never despise small beginnings, that is all that I can say. Happy birthday SMS, and hopefully you will be around for the next 20 years.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung SCH-S960L spotted in benchmarks, points at possible mid-ranged device, Sony could introduce cheap quad-core smartphones in 2013 [Rumor],

On December 3rd, 1992 in the little town of Newbury, Berkshire, a UK programmer sent his best mate a few lines of greeting using a unique new technique called Short Messaging Service. The programmer, Neil Papworth, was a test engineer for the Sema Group, and sent the message via PC to the phone of Richard Jarvis, a Vodafone employee. The message was “Merry Christmas.” Vodafone intended the service as a fun and easy way to communicate internally.

That obviously wasn’t the case. It took seven years after that first message for texting to take off, but now nearly 8 trillion messages cross the air every year. Adults 18-25 send 133 messages a week each.

The Guardian has a nice long write-up on the service, but let’s take a moment to doff our hats to the lowly messaging system that could. SMS was, at least in Europe, popular for a number of reasons. Before inexpensive service plans, a single ring to a person’s phone from yours was used as a sort of signal that you had arrived or that you wanted to chat. This gave way to texts, which were often cheaper than “phone impulses,” relegating voice calls to the back burner.

SMS began with pagers which, in turn, got their start in telegraphy and telex. Messages like 911 and 07734 (read it upside down) were ways to send quick notes to friends. This led to “text pagers” and the first BlackBerry, a two-way pager launched in 1999, with its “druplet” keyboard. Text, in many ways, became the preferred mode of communication in business and between friends.

As you reach for your phone to tap out a message, drain a dram of wassail for the little messaging service that could. While my grumpy generation wld argu that txtspeak hz destryd th writun wurd, I suspect the rise of autocorrect and video chats may reduce our dependence on the old ways. But there’s still something special about getting the old “I luv u ;x” from a significant other and a bit of the old “80085″ from a friend.

[Image: Andresr/Shutterstock]

Ever since SMS was first conceived, it has become an unstoppable force that has been taking over voice calling as the number one way to communicate with someone over mobile devices. However, for the first time ever, text messaging volume in the US has declined according to a new research report from Chetan Sharma Consulting.

During the third quarter this year, “there was a decline in both the total number of text messages as well as the total messaging revenue in the market” for the first time in the US. However, this doesn’t mean that people are sending less messages over mobile devices. IP messaging services like Apple’s iMessage and RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger are slowly taking over traditional SMS.

Numbers wise, in the third quarter of this year, mobile phone owners sent an average of 678 texts per month, which is down from 696 texts a month in the previous quarter. This isn’t a huge decline, but it’s the first ever decline that has been recorded. And it’s not a big concern for users, and it’s also not a big deal for carriers, since a bulk of their revenue comes from data plans.

The downward trend in text messaging is also apparent with businesses who offer mobile devices to employees. Tero Kuittinen, vice president of Alekstra, a company that helps people manage mobile phone costs, said that employees at ten of its locations were sending around 5 to 10% fewer text messages than a year ago. The adoption of smartphones has definitely led to a new era of messaging friends and family, where traditional SMS is no longer becoming the norm.

[via CNET]

Text messaging on decline for first time ever is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.