Here is part of what the Wikipedia article has to say, which appears to show that the size limits were indeed the result of the existing design, and so the only

Here is part of what the Wikipedia article has to say, which appears to show that the size limits were indeed the result of the existing design, and so the only 'proof' here was that the existing amount of data would be sufficient for the intended purpose. Which makes the linked article another example of the mainstream press getting themselves all confused when it comes to cause and effect in technology. A key sentence in the Wikipedia article was that SMS, so limited, could be implemented with software changes only, making its rollout by far easier and more likely to occur. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS: "The innovation in SMS is Short. The GSM is optimized for telephony, since this was identified as its main application. The key idea for SMS was to use this telephony-optimized system, and to transport messages on the signaling paths needed to control the telephony traffic during time periods when no signaling traffic existed. In this way, unused resources in the system could be used to transport messages at minimal cost. However, it was necessary to limit the length of the messages to 128 bytes (later improved to 140 bytes, or 160 seven-bit characters) so that the messages could fit into the existing signaling formats. This concept allowed SMS to be implemented in every mobile station by updating its software. This concept was instrumental for the implementation of SMS in every mobile station ever produced and in every network from early days. Hence, a large base of SMS capable terminals and networks existed when the users began to utilize the SMS."