Text message character length

[Thundaar2000]

couldn't you use MMS?
I think MMS has a higher limit.

I looked at the \/erizon site and here is what I found...

"How many text characters can be entered into a picture/video message? The maximum number of characters that can be entered into a picture/video message is 400 (a space counts as one character). "

[michaelk]

Originally Posted by Nuar

Thanks for all the responces guys!

bakntyme,
thank you for the response and i appologize for the language... I'm just really frustrated!
I spent a lot of money on this phone and like I said I love everything about it, except for the texting. I am especially heated, because the salesperson at the verizon store told me the phone will be able to send larger texts without a problem, I made sure to ask about it before I purchased this thing.
Well since its standard to have a 160 character limit on the SMS service, does that mean that the phone itself is limited, or is this potentially avoidable with a different widows mobile 6 application?

While I realize that this might seem like a silly issue to have with the phone, please try to understand that for the past 2 years i had no limit and I got use to it, so now being limited is really annoying lol. I could get past it since I can type as long as I want and it will split it, but others that are use to sending me long texts are whining and complaining even more then me :P

The phone isn't limited- their may be a registry hack or a 3rd party app that can do it.

Basically the networks are limited. to elaborate on what bakntyme said- text messages aren't sent over the data network- that's why you dont need a data plan to send them.

So if they aren't voice and dont go over the data network how does it work? It's a trick- basically they use some extra data space on a signaling channel in the voice network to sneak the messages through. The 160 character limit is because that's all the space that exists in that signalling channel.

I've had phones that send and receive more than 160 charaters of SMS (palm OS treos specifically) not sure how they do it- but i know they aren't following the standard so it's not certain it would work on from any phone on any netwrok to any other phone on any other network. And that's why the carriers and the phone makers place the 160 carrier limit in there.


Anyway- if it's just to send to your girlfirend- why not just send each other MMS messages? They get sent as data so they have no limit that I know of. You dont need to include any multimedia you can just send them as text. In fact some phones have a setting to default to MMS.

[[sammich]]

I believe Vcast to Vcast phones use a proprietary messaging service. I heard it from a verizon rep.

But we all know how reliable in store reps. are...

[michaelk]

Originally Posted by saumaun

I believe Vcast to Vcast phones use a proprietary messaging service. I heard it from a verizon rep.

But we all know how reliable in store reps. are...

now that you mention it- I think that's right.

One of the treo firware revisions allowed more than 160 others did not. My sister in law has a razr and she would send big messaged all the time. On some phones I'd get the whole message on others it would just truncate at 160. I'm thinking it must have been that some treo roms where 'vcast' compatible and others weren't. MAkes some sense now that you tossed that out.

[xweaponx]

You can still type a novel... it you look in the corner of the messaging screen you will see a 1/1 or 1/2 etc. Thats the number of 160 character-limited messages you have created. When you are done with your "novel", it will send it but the person will simple recieve 1 or 2 or 3 text messages containing the full message.

As it has been mentioned you have your messages stiched together using a non-standard sms service but the end result is still the same. I sometimes pump out small books worth of text and everyone within my circle still receives them fine.

Of course you can email too and that is basically un-restricted but then not everyone receives email on their phone. But many of my friends have PPC's and so we just email large text, attachements, etc...

[michaelk]

actually it's better this way- it's the most compatible.

If you send from one of the phones with the non-standard setting to a phone that only gets the standard 160 length the receiving phone just truncates at 160 and the end of the message gets lopped off