diff --git a/examples/utils.rb b/examples/utils.rb
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..7363cb52
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/utils.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+require 'rubygems'
+require 'plivo'
+
+include Plivo
+#able to identify the number of units, total character and encoding type
+#function get_unit_count_encoding takes input string param, example:message content
+begin
+  text = "❤aabbbb"
+  units, count, encoding_type = Utils.get_unit_count_encoding(text)
+  puts units
+end
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/lib/plivo/utils.rb b/lib/plivo/utils.rb
index 5b94f45e..50a9fb66 100644
--- a/lib/plivo/utils.rb
+++ b/lib/plivo/utils.rb
@@ -290,5 +290,34 @@ def valid_signatureV3?(uri, nonce, signature, auth_token, method, params={})
       generated_signature = compute_signatureV3?(new_url, auth_token, nonce)
       return signature.split(",").include? generated_signature
     end
+
+    def get_unit_count_encoding(text)
+      unit = 1
+      mx_unsplit_len = 160
+      mx_part_len = 153
+      count = text.size
+      if text.force_encoding("UTF-8").ascii_only?
+        encoding_type = "GSM"
+      else
+        encoding_type = "UNICODE"
+        mx_unsplit_len = 70
+        mx_part_len = 67
+      end
+      if count <= mx_unsplit_len
+        return unit, count, encoding_type
+      end
+      charcount = text.size
+      while text.size > 0
+        if text.size > mx_part_len
+          text = text[mx_part_len..charcount]
+          unit += 1
+        else
+          text = ''
+        end
+        charcount = text.size
+      end
+      return unit, count, encoding_type
+    end
+
   end
 end