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SMS turns 20 years today!

The first time I got to try SMS was sometime in 1996 and I did not know the first time it was established was way back in 1984.

At that time, it was still a test. It took about 8 years more before it became a standard and the very first commercial SMS was sent out in 1992.

Engineer Neil Papworth sent the first SMS to an Orbitel 901 handset via Vodafone UK’s network in 1992: “Merry Christmas.

Here in the Philippines, Islacom first offered commercial GSM service in February 1994 while Smart was first established in 1991 by Orlando Vea (now President/CEO of Sun Cellular after PLDT bought Digitel) and started commercial service in December 1993.

Filipinos send over a billion SMS each month, contributing to an annual 7 trillion SMS sent out globally each year.

Anybody remembered their first cellphone and SMS in the 90s?

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

38 Responses

  1. Avatar for Paolo Paolo says:

    My first SIM card is globe prepaid and cost 1000 with my Panasonic phone and this luckily I am still using my simcard

  2. Avatar for aceraffy aceraffy says:

    My first cellphone was 3210, it cost 14,000PHP that time and it was damn expensive. i remember i puk my sim and boom, sim card costs 1000php that time. Lucky kids don’t have the trouble of buying sim cards now.

  3. Avatar for paul e. paul e. says:

    my first cellphone was a nokia 636. couldn’t even send/receive sms ‘coz it was an analog phone.

    my first gsm phone was the nokia 2110. can’t remember what my 1st sms was, though.

  4. Avatar for ronnie ronnie says:

    mine was mitsubishi around 1993 where extelcom was i thought the only cellphone provider.

  5. Avatar for junn junn says:

    mine is 2110 nokia

  6. Avatar for 'em says:

    Nokia 5510 with a Php900+ worth simcard :) Ang mahal ng simcard noon. Ngayon, 10Php, meron ka na hehehe

  7. Avatar for darryl darryl says:

    nakalimutan ko yung unang phone na ginamit ko noong bata pa ako tapos ang phone ko noon ay may antena. tapos ang sim card noon ay islacom. I think it’s 2000 or 1998 yung una kong nasubukan magtxt.

  8. Avatar for lewell lewell says:

    i thought Globe was the first to offer GSM in PH?

  9. Avatar for 9evian6 9evian6 says:

    unang phone ko Nokia 8110 (‘yung ginamit sa Matrix movie), nagulat ako, naka-receive ako ng message. Tapos, parang beeper, tatawag ka sa Globe, sila magpapadala ng message =)

  10. Avatar for pabs pabs says:

    My first cellphone was a motorola microtac in 1996 it was a analog phone by Piltel then, followed by a JBC analog from smart in 1997. When texting was first offered by Globe I switched to them with an ericcson unit, till now I’m still stuck with Globe since 1999 both postpaid and prepaid.

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