Can’t figure this out and perhaps a few Dopers can deliver the goods.
I’m on Verizon. If I wish to send a text message by using my email, I can do so. I can sit at my computer and write a message to, say, 917-555-1212 @ vtext.com .
The " @vtext.com " is Verizon’s way of allowing emails to flow to a cellular phone as an SMS Text Message on their network. Similarly, a recipient can reply straight to an email address. Quite nice.
Are there similar plans in place for the other cellular providers in the United States and if so, does anyone know what they are?
Cartooniverse
**Mods- this kind of feels like a poll, though I seek hard answers to a straight forward question. If you need to slide this to IMHO, that’s cool. **
Yes there are. All cell phone providers have a method to feed emails into SMS. They’re called “SMS email Domains”.
For example, for Sprint it’s @messaging.sprintpcs.com. (among others).
In the past, the email domain name was readily shown on their websites, usually along with a web-based form to send SMSs.
As more & more phones become browser (not SMS) capable, they realised that they could either collect revenue from users text messaging, or give it away free when phone users used web based email to launch SMSes to each other. So they’ve pretty much stopped publicizing the domain names.
Interestingly enough, I was not able to locate any link on the FCC site which points to that list. So it too appears to be deemphasized, although keeping it up to date is still a regulatory requirement.
What there is NOT is a good way to know which domain connects to any given phone number. Some carriers have multiple domains (such as after mergers), and may or may not combine all their domains behind the scenes.
Made up example: AT&T bought SWB in 2004. Current AT&T accounts which started out as SWB accounts still get SMSs from 1234567890@SWB.com, but won’t get messages sent to 1234567890@text.att.com even though the phone’s owner thinks they have an AT&T phone & pay an AT&T bill every month…
To test, I sent a text message to my ATT Gophone (prepaid, not monthly bill) from my computer. The phone rang right away. When I opened the phone, but before opening the text message, my phone told me I was charged $0.15 for that last transaction.
Is this normal with text messages (which I am not familiar with) – to get charged before opening them?
After opening and reading the messages there was no further charge.
Yes. Your phone downloads the message from the tower automatically. You’re charged for receiving the message, not for reading it, and as far as I know there is no method to refuse a message and not be charged for it.
In addition to the $0.15 charge for receiving each of the two text messages, there will be the $1.00 Daily Access Fee tacked on tommorow for using the phone at all. Expensive experiment. But I’m very glad to know about this capability. I was charged for receiving, not sending, as I understand it. Means I can send for free.
Ah the diabolical txt scam. Used by angry spouses to get back at their SO’s for years now. I have had to deal with this all the time.
In essence nothing stops someone from send you 1000’s of txt and you getting charged for each one. It is a vicious way for some one to attack you. If some thing like this was to happen you would need to go to your provider (I would suggest in person not over the phone) and explain what is going on. You would need to change your number and then file a police report. Once they got a police report they should clear your txt balance. (at least this is the way it worked for the past 3 companies I managed for – AT&T / Cingular, US Cellular and T-mobile) If that doesn’t work or you can’t for some reason change your number, all of the carriers have an unlimited txting package for about 15 bucks a month. It’s not a perfect solution but it beats a $500 bill.
I know that wasn’t the OP’s question and I’m sorry for the hijack but I get asked this question all the time.
I’m having trouble with what I put in red:
I open and view the text message which I sent to my phone from my email. From “Options,” I say “OK” to “Reply.” Then I “Write New” message. Then from “Options” I “Select” “Send Only” (or “Save and Send”). The phone displays “Sending Please Wait” and then “Message Sent.”
But I never receive the message as an email on my computer. I have also tried writing a new text message and entering my email address as the “Destination.” The phone limits the number of characters I can enter in “Destination” – won’t let me type in the whole email address. Am I going wrong somewhere?
From what I understand, you can’t always reply to an email text from a phone. The reason being that some mobile carriers consider replying to an email a date feature, not a normal phone feature, so unless you have a data plan (which is usually just used for PDA Phones) then you probably can’t reply to it.
Yeah, the only reason I can do some of the nifty things I’ve learned how do to (i.e. access my Gmail account from my AT&T RAZR phone) is because we pay for the top notch data package plan.
