Vodafone employee sent first ever text 20-years-ago

A Short Message Service (SMS) text was sent by Reading-born Neil Papworth on December 3, 1992, to an an employee at Vodafone.
He said: “I was part of the Sema Group Telecoms team developing a Short Message Service Centre for our customer, Vodafone UK, and was chosen to go to their Newbury site to install, integrate and test the software and get it all working.”
Mr Papworth added: “Initially the idea was for them to use it essentially as a paging service – no one had any idea how gigantic the texting phenomenon would become.
“Since mobile phones didn't yet have keyboards, I typed the message out on a PC. It read ‘merry Christmas’ and I sent it to Richard Jarvis, of Vodafone, who was enjoying his office Christmas party at the time.”
It was not until 1993 that the technology was created to reply – but the rest is history.
The SMS has been responsible for saving lives, making and breaking marriages and transforming everyday communication.
Vodafone estimates 58 per cent of UK adults text friends and family at least once a day – higher than the proportion who claim to communicate face-to-face (49 per cent).
Last year, Brits sent an average of 200 SMS messages per month, and Vodafone’s own figures suggest this has grown by more than a fifth this year.
Although some experts predict a decline, Vodafone UK consumer director Srini Gopalan, believes texting has a bright future.
He said: “It’s difficult to believe that the first text was sent just 20 years ago. Since then texting has become part of our everyday lives. We tend to take the humble text message for granted but it’s been the carrier of life changing and at times even life-saving news. It’s also fair to say that it’s been used to share a lot of bad jokes.
“But reports of the death of the text message are premature. It has adapted over the years and remained a key part of the way that people communicate. We’ve seen the arrival of email, social media, alternative web-based apps, instant messaging and texting has remained popular. There will always be new ways for individuals to communicate with each other, but texting has become so ubiquitous that it is now challenging the phone call as the simplest way for a wide variety of organisations and companies to keep in touch with people.
“I’m sure the text message can look forward to many more birthdays.”