When sending SMS in English text, the message is actually encoded with a character set that ain’t quite the full set that you see on your computer keyboard.
As SMS messages can only carry 140 bytes worth of data, a new Alphabet was invented that will only take up 7-bits per character so that more characters can be squeezed into this 140 bytes, resulting in the current 160 character limit for SMS Text Messaging.
(Most mobile handsets will be able to decipher message transmitted in either 7-bit or 8-bit encoding, but the message transmitted in 8 bit encoding will obviously have a smaller character limit )
This new 7-bit Alphabet ( GSM 03.38) is the default character set that most SMSCs and SMS gateways support. This 7-bit Alphabet also means that there are some characters you should avoid or prevent from sending when designing your SMS sending applications.
The GSM 03.38 7-bit Alphabet set is shown as follows, along with the character’s hexadecimal equivalent representation:
| x0 | x1 | x2 | x3 | x4 | x5 | x6 | x7 | x8 | x9 | xA | xB | xC | xD | xE | xF | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0x | @ | £ | $ | ¥ | è | é | ù | ì | ò | ç | LF | Ø | ø | CR | Å | å |
| 1x | Δ | _ | Φ | Γ | Λ | Ω | Π | Ψ | Σ | Θ | Ξ | ESC | Æ | æ | ß | É |
| 2x | SP | ! | “ | # | ¤ | % | & | ‘ | ( | ) | * | + | , | - | . | / |
| 3x | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | : | ; | < | = | > | ? |
| 4x | ¡ | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O |
| 5x | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | Ä | Ö | Ñ | Ü | § |
| 6x | ¿ | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o |
| 7x | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | w | x | y | z | ä | ö | ñ | ü | à |
The Letters A to Z and numbers 1 to 10 (plus the symbols in between) corresponds to the ACSII encoding table.
Make sure your browser has UTF-8 encoding turned on to read the table above!
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