This is addressed in the LA Times article; it jives almost exactly with Wikipedia's rendition. Hillebrand hit upon the idea of using the control channel. His te

This is addressed in the LA Times article; it jives almost exactly with Wikipedia's rendition. Hillebrand hit upon the idea of using the control channel. His team found room for 160 characters. There was a question about whether this was sufficient space and Hillebrand set about confirming it was. A general take away is the value of the "sniff test". There's a tyrannical aspect to (what some would call) "common sense": it can squelch ideas that seem like they shouldn't work. And it's easy to scoff at the idea of a communications channel with a hard 160 character limit. Hillebrand sitting at a typewriter doesn't prove SMS will work. But it did show that it just might work and merits further investigation. Challenging presumptions may yield surprises.