Geographic Messaging Service

Geographic Messaging Service, or GMS in short, is a new form of messaging for cell phones. It is a message associated with a geographic region that is delivered to a subscriber when they are in that region. This form of messaging extends traditional Short Messaging Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), by allowing subscribers to leave and receive SMS or MMS where they matter. Similar to SMS and MMS, GMS can be the vehicle for peer-to-peer communications—for example, someone leaving a shopping list around the store as a reminder—as well as for other content and marketing services. For example, a tourist organization can leave tidbits about interesting locations in New York City and have them delivered to visitors when they are nearby those locations. And, a store can send coupons over GMS just to those subscribers that are in the vicinity of the store.

The technology underlying GMS is called GeoFencing—detecting when a cellphone crosses a virtual geographic fence. The term GMS was coined by researchers at Bell Laboratories.