Modern desktop e-mail applications typically expect a fast Internet connection, and always expect a large amount of disk space in order to store e-mail messages of arbitrary size. The general trend in desktop e-mail has been towards being able to exchange ever larger and more complex messages, including graphics, sound, and video.
The paging network resides at the other end of the messaging spectrum. The data transfer capability of paging has progressed from purely numeric messages to short alphanumeric messages, but still remains very limited. The first paging systems were one-way only, but recently some proprietary two-way paging systems have become available, in which the paging device can both send and receive messages.
In terms of data transfer capabilities, Mobile Messaging occupies an intermediate role between conventional desktop e-mail and two-way paging. Table 2 compares the basic characteristics of desktop e-mail, paging, and Mobile Messaging. Note that e-mail and paging each have critical advantages that the other does not. For the transfer of ordinary (i.e. not excessively long) messages, however, Mobile Messaging provides all the principal advantages of both desktop e-mail and paging.
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