eMail To SMS Messaging
A reader recently emailed me telling me how disappointed he was at not being able to use the exceptional threaded SMS messaging application on his new Centro because his company had (rather stupidly) decided not to support Messaging plans for any of its team.
He asked me if I knew of any other solution that might still enable him to send SMS messages to friends and associates (and vice versa) even though he did not have a Messaging plan.
I have to admit that the question took me a bit by surprise as I had thus far assumed that pretty much everybody would have access to SMS. Finding the answer to his problem proved to be considerably more time consuming than I had originally expected but I did eventually find a couple of suitable solutions and learned quite a bit in the process.
The first part of the answer was the simple fact that unfortunately without an active Messaging plan there is simply no way that one can use the terrific built-in Messaging application (right screenshot) on the Treo or Centro smartphone.
There is however a fairly simple alternative as I discovered that you can just write an email and have it automatically delivered to a friend/associate’s SMS messaging inbox.
There are two ways to go about this. The first applies if you already know what carrier your recipient uses – you will be able to simply use one of the emails below :
AT&T: phonenumber @txt.att.net
Sprint: phonenumber @messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile: phonenumber @tmomail.net
Verizon: phonenumber @vtext.com
Virgin Mobile: phonenumber @vmobl.comphonenumber = the 10 digit phone number you want to message
(For example 3105552244 @vtext.com if you’re contacting someone on Verizon Wireless)
The second option applies if you don’t know (and/or don’t want to know) the carrier for every single one of the contacts that you’ll want to message. For this I found a very simple and free service called flipOut which allows you to send SMS via email to _any_ carrier without the need to remember the above complex messaging email address for that carrier.
After signing up to the free flipOut service you’ll simply be able to use the following email address to send (see screenshot below) and receive a message via email to any wireless carrier number:
All Mobile Phones: phonenumber @teleflip.com
(For example: 3105552244 @teleflip.com)
[Please note that you can unfortunately currently use flipOut to send messages to US mobile phones only.]
While all of your outbound and inbound email to SMS messages will be free you should nonetheless have to be polite and considerate as many of your recipients may be charged for your incoming SMS messages. You should also restrict your messages to no more than 120 characters (including Subject and Body) as flipOut uses an automatic signature that is 40 characters long and any longer messages will mean that multiple SMS are sent to your recipient.
Evidently this type of email to SMS setup can be used by anybody not only those people unlucky not to have a Messaging plan. For example, if you’re at the office or home it may prove considerably easier and faster to type an SMS message from your PC than from your smartphone.
Treonauts always have a message to send…
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Comments
Nice tip Andrew. I hope I never have to be forced to use it, but it's good to know there is a workaround for not having a messaging plan.
A few things to add to this great post:
For AT&T you can alternatively use:
[email protected]
This is the older email address to SMS vintage Cingular. What's different is how the message is sent. The message will come from your email address rather than come from a number that AT&T maps back to your email. Sometimes it's also faster (sometimes slower.)
Also for MMS messages, you can attach a photo, audio clip, or video (assuming they're in the right format) to:
[email protected]
Be mindful that there are attachment size limits.
See http://wireless.att.com/ for more info.
Lastly. Some instant messaging programs allow you to SMS directly from them. Yahoo Messenger, for example will allow you to send an SMS from YIM directly to from the desktop app as if it were another person on YIM.
As a YIM user with an SMS plan, you can also log in to YIM through SMS by sending a text message to '92466' (yahoo) with: in USERID PW
This will log you in. You can then send 'help' to 92466 for more commands.
This is a great way to use the Palm threaded SMS app for yahoo instant messaging if you have an unlimited data plan.
See:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mobile/messenger/messenger-25.html
for a full list of commands
The reason that some companies do not subscribe to text messaging service with their carrier is that due to tort exposure, emails and text messaging can become part of the legal documents of their business. This method may be a good work-around for those employees.
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