# GSM extended characters

> GSM extended characters are the few symbols (such as €, [, ], {, }, \, ^, |, ~) that the 7-bit alphabet encodes with an escape, so each one counts as two characters toward the 160 limit.

The GSM-7 basic table has no room for some common symbols. The standard reaches them through an escape character followed by a code, which keeps the message in GSM-7 but costs two positions. The set is small: the euro sign, form feed, square brackets, braces, backslash, caret, pipe and tilde.

They are a trap for a counter that only counts characters: a message with three euro signs is three characters longer than it looks. A text at exactly 160 with one bracket is two segments.

At SMSMeteor: the counter weighs extended characters correctly; the API's `segments` field is computed the same way.

Related terms: [GSM-7](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/gsm-7), [Character counter](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/character-counter), [SMS segment](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/segment)

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Source: https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/gsm-extended-characters (HTML). Generated by SMSMeteor from the same data as the page. Summary of the whole site: https://smsmeteor.com/llms.txt