[Anonymous]

[alisha.h]

Do you remember when you first started texting?

[JohnnyEnglish]

Summer, 1999.

[RichardB]

also summer 1999 when I moved to Finland and there you could send a text to people on other mobile networks. At that time in the UK you could only send a text to people on the same network (orange -> orange, vodafone -> vodafone) which made the system pretty much useless.

[Bullfrog]

There was also a different rate for phone calls inside the M25 motorway to outside, and different rates depending on time of day.

Receiving calls on a UK mobile in the UK is free to the recipient whereas in the USA, one has to pay to receive calls.

[JordanD]

As Nerina Pallot said, I’m a “real late starter”. First text was sent in Summer 2002 (I’d only just got a mobile phone by then).

[VintageKrug]

What a fascinating and enlightening subject.

[MartynSinclair]

I remember my first ever text and to whom and where it was read.

I had just learnt what a text was, and sent an I LOVE YOU text to my wife who was driving down the M1. She was clueless as to what the beeping was and had to pull onto the hard shoulder of the M1 to find out what to do and how to read it.

The killer was, she didnt know what it was or who had sent it!!

[RoadKing]

My first text was in June 1995. I remember I thought it was so cool!
I am a computer programmer, so I was probably more geared to this than the average person :-).

[VintageKrug]

Most edifying.

[TominScotland]

Pray, colleagues, what is this texting? Is a first text like your first kiss – something to be savoured depending on what he/ she had for dinner?

[VintageKrug]

Fascinating indeed.

[BeckyBoop]

2006.. i think? I live to text and send 20-30 texts a day!!! xxx

[pinstripes&airmiles]

Christmas 1998, I remember who I sent it to, but not what I said. It was from a Nokia 5110… I thought I was the mut’s nuts with that thing, it’d be practially useless to me these days. How far we’ve come!

[Tim2soza]

(I declare a commercial interest, but can’t resist an answer. I hope I have not broken any house rules.)

First handset SMS sent over Mercury One2one. They launched in 1993, so probably soon after. Bought a pair of phones. Sent to the future Mrs T2S.

Sent a SMS from a web page in April 1999 using a Vodafone radiopad. It might even have been earlier.

Today a number of airlines use SMS to get planes swapped out and staff re-rostered. Also for PAX updates. The Bunsfield fire and the Volcanic ash incidents were tipping points for SMS use within the airline industry in the UK.

[Author]

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