Abstract: Short messages sent by a mobile terminal from a foreign network are routed to an external short-message entity. An external short-message entity, which runs on a computer in a data network, is reached from a mobile telephone from any desired foreign network. The inquiry of the short-message service center of the foreign network to the home network occurs at a virtual home location register of the home network, based on the receiver number of the external short-message entity. The virtual home location register replies to the inquiry with an acknowledgement containing information on a virtual mobile switching center of the home network, via which the short message (SMS) which is to be transmitted to the external short-message entity.

Abstract: To provide a method for transmitting short messages (SMS) between computers (3, 8, 9) in the Internet (4), wherein the short message (SMS) is converted into a data format comprised of a header part (10) and a useful part (32), with at least one data field (11) for determining the data format, at least one data field (16) for identifying the sender, and at least one data field (19) for identifying the recipient being inserted into the header part (10), it is provided that before, during and, optionally, after the transmission of the short message (SMS), character strings (.LOGIN, .SELECT-CHANNEL) are exchanged between computers (3, 8, 9). By using the data format described in combination with the character strings which are exchanged between the computers (3, 8, 9), a protocol (ISMTP, Internet Short Message Transfer Protocol) that is suitable for such a data transfer and variable can be created which is based on a computer network, e.g. a TCP-IP-based network.