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How do I send messages with special characters, such as the Arabic or Turkish alphabet?

By default, messages are sent using the GSM Character Set.

This stands for Global System for Mobile Communications. It is the most widely used text encoding standard for sending messages.

It includes all characters from the Latin alphabet, numbers, the most common punctuation marks, and some basic symbols.

Texts sent using GSM can be up to 160 characters long.

For the Arabic or Turkish alphabet, you need the Unicode Character Set.

This gives you a much wider range of characters to send compared to standard Latin characters.

Note that Unicode encoding reduces the SMS length to 70 characters instead of 160 for regular messages. If you send more than 70 characters, it will be split into 63 characters per message. The operator requires the 7 extra characters to link each message.

You can email us to activate this option (Unicode) for your account.

Updated on: 27/01/2026