SMS Encoding
IntelePeer supports two main types of encoding, which are dynamically switched based on the characters you enter in the message text:
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GSM-7
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A standard alphabet for SMS messages containing the most commonly used letters and symbols.
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Seven (7) bits are used to send a single character with GSM-7 encoding. Since SMS messages are transmitted as 140 8-bit octets, a message encoded with GSM-7 can contain up to 160 characters: (140*8)/7 = 160.
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If concatenated messages are used, a User Data Header of six (6) bytes is used so the receiving device can re-assemble the messages. This leaves 153 GSM-7 characters available per single SMS message segment.
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UCS-2
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An expanded alphabet for SMS messages containing additional characters and alphabets (for example, Korean, Chinese, and Arabic).
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Sixteen (16) bits (2 bytes) are used to send a single character with UCS-2 encoding. Since SMS messages are transmitted as 140 8-bit octets, a message encoded with UCS-2 can contain up to 70 characters: (140*8)/(2*8) = 70.
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If concatenated messages are used, a User Data Header of six (6) bytes is used so the receiving device can re-assemble the messages. This leaves 67 UCS-2 characters available per single SMS message segment.
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With this simple tool, you can check the following:
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Which encoding type will be used for your message
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The number of characters in your message
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How many segments your message will be split into
Here are some tips and tricks to keep your SMS short and keep cost down:
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Make sure you use only the following GSM-7 characters instead of UCS-2 characters:
@£$¥èéùìòÇ`Øø`ÅåΔ_ΦΓΛΩΠΨΣΘΞ`ÆæßÉ!"#¤%&'()*=,-./0123456789:;<=>?¡ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÄÖÑÜ`¿abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzäöñüà
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Use the old-fashioned : ) or ; ) instead of emojis, which are UCS-2 characters
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Use abbreviations and try to shorten words (for example, 2gether vs together, or 4ever vs forever)