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  1. #1
    J B
    Guest
    One of my staff sent me a text, a joke about Santa.

    When the bill came, he (well, me really coz it's a work phone) was billed
    for three texts.

    I finally managed to get through to Orange (are committed to providing
    excellent customer service) - only took me two weeks - and the lady there
    said that if you send a 'long' text, it uses up so many characters that it
    counts as more than one text
    It took up 22 lines on my NK5140.

    Is the lady being 'economical with the truth' or what?


    --

    J B





    See More: How many characters in a text message?




  2. #2
    {{{{{Welcome}}}}}
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?

    Thus spaketh J B:
    > One of my staff sent me a text, a joke about Santa.
    >
    > When the bill came, he (well, me really coz it's a work phone) was
    > billed for three texts.
    >
    > I finally managed to get through to Orange (are committed to providing
    > excellent customer service) - only took me two weeks - and the lady
    > there said that if you send a 'long' text, it uses up so many
    > characters that it counts as more than one text
    > It took up 22 lines on my NK5140.
    >
    > Is the lady being 'economical with the truth' or what?


    1 SMS text is 160 characters, if you use longer texts, then you will be billed
    for each 160 characters.


    --
    For £5 when referred to easyMobile contact me via
    http://www.south-east-birmingham.tk
    www.dodgy-dealer.co.uk




  3. #3
    Poldie
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?


    {{{{{Welcome}}}}} wrote:
    > Thus spaketh J B:
    > > One of my staff sent me a text, a joke about Santa.
    > >
    > > When the bill came, he (well, me really coz it's a work phone) was
    > > billed for three texts.
    > >
    > > I finally managed to get through to Orange (are committed to providing
    > > excellent customer service) - only took me two weeks - and the lady
    > > there said that if you send a 'long' text, it uses up so many
    > > characters that it counts as more than one text
    > > It took up 22 lines on my NK5140.
    > >
    > > Is the lady being 'economical with the truth' or what?

    >
    > 1 SMS text is 160 characters, if you use longer texts, then you will be billed
    > for each 160 characters.


    Pedantically, you'll be billed for each group of up to 160 characters.
    A full stop following a 160 character message will cost you an extra
    10p (or whatever you're charged per text message).




  4. #4
    purple pete
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?

    So if your text is gonna be 161 characters long you may as well spend the
    whole of the next 10p (or whatever it is per message) and talk away right up
    to 320 characters





  5. #5
    J B
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?

    "Poldie" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    news:[email protected]...

    > Pedantically, you'll be billed for each group of up to 160 characters.


    Doh!

    T'was 375 characters (sad me, I just counted them!!!)

    375 / 160 = 2.34

    :-(


    --

    J B





  6. #6
    {{{{{Welcome}}}}}
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?

    Thus spaketh purple pete:
    > So if your text is gonna be 161 characters long you may as well spend
    > the whole of the next 10p (or whatever it is per message) and talk
    > away right up to 320 characters



    Yeah, If I am going to be one or two characters over the 160 limit, I will
    then go back and try and shorten some of the words, if this can't be done,
    then I will add to the text. I currently pay 3p or 5p per text depending on
    who I am sending to and therefore which phone I use.


    --
    For £5 when referred to easyMobile contact me via
    http://www.south-east-birmingham.tk
    www.dodgy-dealer.co.uk




  7. #7
    {{{{{Welcome}}}}}
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?

    Thus spaketh J B:
    > "Poldie" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    >
    >> Pedantically, you'll be billed for each group of up to 160
    >> characters.

    >
    > Doh!
    >
    > T'was 375 characters (sad me, I just counted them!!!)
    >
    > 375 / 160 = 2.34
    >
    > :-(


    So that will be 3 text messages.



  8. #8
    KevinX
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?

    And the Tax man will probably pay the bill anyhow!!

    :-)


    "{{{{{Welcome}}}}}" <bhx___spam@trapped___hotmail.co.uk> wrote in message
    news:[email protected]...
    > Thus spaketh J B:
    > > "Poldie" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > > news:[email protected]...
    > >
    > >> Pedantically, you'll be billed for each group of up to 160
    > >> characters.

    > >
    > > Doh!
    > >
    > > T'was 375 characters (sad me, I just counted them!!!)
    > >
    > > 375 / 160 = 2.34
    > >
    > > :-(

    >
    > So that will be 3 text messages.






  9. #9
    Taylor
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?

    "purple pete" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    news:[email protected]...
    > So if your text is gonna be 161 characters long you may as well spend the
    > whole of the next 10p (or whatever it is per message) and talk away right
    > up to 320 characters


    All of the above is actually incorrect, you need control characters to
    determine who the message was from, what message ID it's linked to, etc, so
    you don't get 3 x 160 characters by any means.





  10. #10
    Jon
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?

    [email protected] declared for all the world to hear...
    > One of my staff sent me a text, a joke about Santa.
    >
    > When the bill came, he (well, me really coz it's a work phone) was billed
    > for three texts.
    >
    > I finally managed to get through to Orange (are committed to providing
    > excellent customer service) - only took me two weeks - and the lady there
    > said that if you send a 'long' text, it uses up so many characters that it
    > counts as more than one text
    > It took up 22 lines on my NK5140.
    >
    > Is the lady being 'economical with the truth' or what?


    No.
    --
    Regards
    Jon



  11. #11
    Poldie
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?

    {{{{{Welcome}}}}} wrote:
    > Thus spaketh purple pete:
    > > So if your text is gonna be 161 characters long you may as well spend
    > > the whole of the next 10p (or whatever it is per message) and talk
    > > away right up to 320 characters

    >
    >
    > Yeah, If I am going to be one or two characters over the 160 limit, I will
    > then go back and try and shorten some of the words, if this can't be done,
    > then I will add to the text. I currently pay 3p or 5p per text depending on
    > who I am sending to and therefore which phone I use.


    Of course, there's no reason, other than the loss of profit to the
    networks of course, that phones don't compress text messages so that
    they take less space to fit. You get a pretty good compression ratio
    out of plain text, especially if most of the words are in the t9
    dictionary. I guess we'll have to wait until we're not limited to the
    phone's software and can instead use our own programs to send text
    messages/data.




  12. #12
    Clueless2
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?

    "Poldie" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    news:[email protected]...
    >You get a pretty good compression ratio
    > out of plain text, especially if most of the words are in the t9
    > dictionary.


    How do you know if the receiptian's phone has the same version of T9 and/or
    even the same dictionary to correctly decode your encryted message?





  13. #13
    Poldie
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?


    Clueless2 wrote:
    > "Poldie" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    > >You get a pretty good compression ratio
    > > out of plain text, especially if most of the words are in the t9
    > > dictionary.

    >
    > How do you know if the receiptian's phone has the same version of T9 and/or
    > even the same dictionary to correctly decode your encryted message?


    I don't.




  14. #14
    Pete Fotheringham
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?

    To be really pedantic, 1 SMS text is 160 * 8 bits (i.e. 160 bytes or
    octets). If your phone sends in Ascii or GSM Character sets (where 1
    character = 8 or 7 bits) the you will get 160 characters per SMS. If
    however your phone sends Unicode text (as most Symbian OS phones will
    do if you enter non-ascii characters in your message), where 1
    character = 16 bits, then you may only get 80 characters per SMS.

    But your Orange CS lady was not being economical with the truth.

    Incidentally, on older phones which do not support SMS concatenation,
    the message in question would have appeared as three separate
    messages.

    Fascinating stuff telecoms - I'll go back to bed now!

    Regards

    Pete F




  15. #15
    Allan Gould
    Guest

    Re: How many characters in a text message?

    J B wrote:
    >
    > One of my staff sent me a text, a joke about Santa.


    [snip]

    My mobile co (T-Mobile http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/ ) offers the facility
    on its website (once you've registered etc) to send text messages from
    the website as if they came from the handset. Apart from the added
    functionality of being able to use an ordinary keyboard and being able
    to edit text more easily, it has a counter showing how many characters
    are available (counting down from 160), and shows you how many messages
    will be needed once past the first 160 characters. Quite useful
    really. Don't know if other mobile cos have this on their websites,
    although there are plenty of other ways of sending text messages via
    websites; however, the point of this posting was to mention the counter.

    Allan




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