SCKL is a type of format used when sending image and

ringtone A ringtone, ring tone or ring is the sound made by a telephone to indicate an incoming call. Originally referring to and made by the electromechanical striking of bells, the term now refers to any sound on any device alerting of a new incoming ...

data through Short Message Service (SMS) messages; most

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive telephone call, calls over a radio freq ...

s can interpret this type of data, for some it will show the data as a text message. It was developed by Nokia. Not all networks, for example

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communication ...

IDEN Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) is a mobile telecommunications technology, developed by Motorola, which provides its users the benefits of a trunked radio and a cellular telephone. It was called the first mobile social network by m ...

, and TDMA networks, can directly pass

binary data Binary data is data whose unit can take on only two possible states. These are often labelled as 0 and 1 in accordance with the binary numeral system and Boolean algebra. Binary data occurs in many different technical and scientific fields, wher ...

to mobile phones. Ringtones and graphics contain binary data and

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finlan ...

's SCKL encoding provides a method of delivering binary data to a phone using only printable characters. Thus it allows ringtones and graphics to be delivered over CDMA, IDEN, and TDMA networks. It also requires a phone that can correctly interpret the SCKL format and most Nokia phones can do this, as well as some phones from other manufacturers and many WAP compatible phones.

Message format

SCKL message consists of a header, then a space, and lastly user data. The description that follows is somewhat simplified to give all the essentials without giving all the options. Below is an SCKL format message to send a ringtone:

//SCKL1581 024A3A650995D1D195C93D999804144288F511610611624D30831445

Each SCKL message must contain 160 characters or less since this is the maximum number of characters that can be sent in one SMS message. The letters must be in upper case for some phones.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sckl Mobile telecommunications standards