Text messaging soars in U.S.

WASHINGTON, July 28 (UPI) -- Five billion text messages are sent from and to U.S. cell phones every month--up from 2.8 billion last year, to a wireless trade association says.

Many factors have contributed to the rise in messaging, the Cellular Telecommunication and Internet Association told USA Today, one main reason being access -- 90 percent of the nearly 200 million cell phones in the United States have text message capability.

Text messages can be sent from any phone to any phone, without a company-specific barrier. Around 45 percent of all U.S. text messages are sent between networks that had been inaccessible.