# Why did the concept of text messaging not catch on earlier?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-concept-of-text-messaging-not-catch-on-earlier/802267>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 21, 2017, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-concept-of-text-messaging-not-catch-on-earlier/802267 "2017-11-21T10:44:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-concept-of-text-messaging-not-catch-on-earlier/802267/41 "2017-11-24T23:09:08Z")

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> [@filmstar-en](#):
>
> The technology leapt forward at about the same time as mobile phone technology went digital, then satellite TV and terrestial TV all moved to digital. The reason for this was the development of silicon chips dedicated to digital signal processing, squeezing the maximum amount of data carrying capacity out of a copper wire, cable, radio or microwave link. A DSL broadband router has the equivalent performance of 250 or more of those old modems all working on the same phone line, with a another 250 at the other end in the phone company office. All that crammed into a small chip in a broadband router.
> 
> The voice network based on copper cables was re-engineered by the big Telcos to carry data packets over digital modulated lines instead of being prioritised for analogue voice. This has been a huge undertaking by the telecoms companies and require very large investment, but these always on digital circuits have in turn enabled all the Internet technologies we use every day.

Bingo. Two-way alphanumeric pagers (basically the sort of device the OP is wondering about) were a fast-growing product from about 1995 to 2000. The digital paging networks (eg. the Flex network that MobileMedia/Arch Wireless built) were massively more efficient than the cell phone system at transmitting text messages, which let the paging companies undersell the cellphone companies for that service even with the overhead of having to buy a separate device for that service. But those were your choices: buy an expensive two-way alpha pager and fairly cheap paging service, or pay through the nose for text messages sent on the cellphone network. At those prices, nobody has big market penetration.

Then the cellphone networks made massive upgrades and were able to fold cheaper text messaging into cell service. That started the ball rolling for widespread use of text messaging, and also for a huge crash in the paging industry. Eventually the tattered remains of basically every major paging service provider consolidated into USA Mobility, which is mainly back in the business of providing numeric pagers to physicians.

(I was laid off from Arch in 2002. Got to see most of this mess first-hand.)

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