TEXTING has been a surprise 鈥渒iller application鈥�, generating unexpected
megabucks for cellphone operators around the world. Now telecoms company BT
wants to bring texting to Britain鈥檚 landline phones. And it鈥檚 managed to launch
the technology on the high street before anyone else got a sniff of the firm鈥檚
plans.
Texting works because cellphones can hide short messages in the unused space
in a network鈥檚 control channels, which are used to set up speech calls. But
landlines don鈥檛 have these channels, so BT鈥檚 new system makes use of the
modem-like tones that convey the number of a caller to the phone receiving the
call鈥攁llowing some landline phones to display an incoming call鈥檚
number.
BT鈥檚 new 拢100 digital cordless phone, the Diverse 4010, launched last
week, simply adds text message data to the caller ID tones. It can send a text
message to a cellphone or another of the new phones, using BT鈥檚 Cellnet cellular
network.
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The new system lets you send texts to any cellphone in Britain for 12p, and
it receives messages free. So far, it can only receive texts from Cellnet
phones, but other networks in Britain, Germany and Italy are planning to get
connected to the system, which has just been approved for use by the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute.