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Suggestion for solving the SMS related problems

     For solving the problems related to the sending of SMS with Cyrillic letters, we suggest the following:

   to be eliminated the discrimination of the Cyrillic alphabet in the writing of SMS massages. In the present situation if you send a Cyrillic SMS, it must be very short. The reason is that there is a byte limitation for that kind of SMS. Except that, the coding uses two bytes for a Cyrillic letter and one byte for a Latin, which means that for the same money you would pay for a Latin SMS you get a twice shorter Cyrillic SMS.

     For the elimination of this problem we suggest to be made an amendment in the law for the distant communications, which says that if a GSM operator uses a coding with twice shorter SMS massages with Cyrillic letters, the clients must be compensated with a price reduction, for example of 10%.

   We have another suggestion that might solve the problem with the length of the SMS massages and also the problem that many telephones don't have the Cyrillic alphabet. Practically, we suggest the coding of the SMS massages to be changed, but it is almost impossible, because the software used by the operators is capsulated and it is very difficult to change it. The solution we are suggesting concerns only the software of the phones, without demanding changes of the GSM operator software.

     The suggested solution is:

     When you write an SMS with Cyrillic letters, your phone is going to code it before sending, according to the standard for reverse coding. At the end of the massage it is going to be added a special Unicode symbol, showing that the massage is in coded Cyrillic, not in Latin. When your SMS is received by a phone with the described above coding, it will recognize that it is with Cyrillic letters and it will show it translated. When the massage is received by a phone not having that coding, it will show it with Latin letters and the Unicode symbol will be a square, because it won't be recognized as a known symbol.

     Using this solution, the problem with the length of the massages is solved. For example, if you are limited to use 100 symbols in Latin, the limitation becomes 98 % when you write with the Cyrillic alphabet (you lose two bytes for the Unicode symbol).It is true that you need to code the letters Ù, Þ and ß as two letters for each and that's why the limitation becomes 85 - 95%, depending on the number of these letters in the massage. That is much better than the present limitation of 55 symbols (we suppose they are not 50 because there are usually around 10 spaces and punctuation marks). That means that the massage can be around 40% longer.

     An advantage of this solution is that people will be able to write in Bulgarian, using the T9 mode and then to send that massage to whoever they want, no matter if the receiver's GSM reads Cyrillic letters or not. If the massage is shown with Latin letters, he will still be able to read it, although he'll have to decode. Even in that case it will be easier for him because he'll receive all the massages coded one way (following the same standard) and they will be literate (thanks for the T9 mode).Only the owners of phones that read Cyrillic letters but don't have the coding described above, won't be satisfied. They are going to read the SMS in Latin, although they can receive massages with Cyrillic letters. For that case there is an opportunity to be sent a Cyrillic massage from that phone, coded following the standard, but then it must be marked from the sender.

     Another opportunity for these phones will be transliterating massages written in Bulgarian but coded in Latin. When these massages include the special Unicode symbol, the transliteration will happen automatically, but when the SMS is written on a regular GSM with Latin letters and doesn't include the symbol, the transliteration can be done if the receiver demands it. Of course, the transliterated text will be absolutely correct, only if the sender coded it conforming to the standard.

   We also have an offer to be introduced a phonetic keyboard for cell phones. The offer is described with the suggestion for keyboard changes.
 
 

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