Long story, but we have a need to be able to send text messages to cell phones from a PC - but without going through a service provider’s web page. I.e., we might need to send a text message to 4 people, each on a separate service, and be able to do it from a PC web site that is not Verizon’s, etc.
Is there a web service that provides this that anyone has any experience with here?
Cool - I’ll try that. Also had someone recommend http://smseverywhere.com/
The reason I’m asking here instead of just googling - want to avoid any that automatically reap the numbers entered to sell to spammers.
Now - the IDEAL would be a place that let me send AND receive from a phone’s text/SMS. I don’t assume IMs like google talk include that feature?
I don’t know about EVERY one of them, but ALMOST every service provider simply has the option to use an email address for the SMS inbox. For example, if you send an email to [phonenumber]@messaging.sprintpcs.com, it’ll hit the phone as a text message. I don’t know all the other carriers off the top of my head, but I’m pretty sure all the major ones, at least, do that. If they just reply, it’ll come back to the email address it was sent from. I don’t know if that’s exactly what you’re looking for, and you’d have to track down how each service provider does it, but it can be done from any email account, and it’s simple and requires no extra services.
ah - that would be perfect! I’ll do some testing - thanks!
Jeff – in case you haven’t stumbled upon this by yourself – once again, wikipedia knows all.
beautiful - thanks.
So far in testing this, it appeared to work without a hitch going to the Verizon user - sending from a Hotmail account. A little problem in sending to our T-Mobile user from the same Hotmail account - the message comes in as a MMS rather than SMS, which created some problems. Also - on the Verizon, replying was very straightforward. On the T-Mobile, it states that it can’t send a text message to an email address.
More work to be done, but it seems to be a good path - thanks.
Looks like setting up a mailing list with the four targets is the easiest approach here, hope it works out for you.
Alternately, you could pick up a wireless modem and sms gateway software and send SMS messages directly from a PC and/or server. If you want to hurt your brain trying to find a free software alternative, you can always click here. (caveat: it’s been a couple years since I’ve mucked around with this stuff, so ymmv)
In practice, Murph’s tip re: using email is definitely the easiest way to go, though. If you only have to deal with a handful of people, and everything just works on Verizon, get 'em all Verizon phones :)
Looks like Skype has some sort of interface to an SMS gateway too, although I think they charge for it. That’d be useful if one of your target carriers doesn’t have an email gateway, or if one of your target carriers requires their users to pay to receive SMS-via-email (I think Verizon falls into this group).
I use bitbomb.com for this. Its free, they don’t sell your phone number to spammers (at least, they haven’t in the 6 months or so I have been using it). They do show google targeted ads on your PC, but no spam or ads to your phone. bitbomb allows you to schedule text messages in advance (I use it for reminders), and you can also set up friends lists, which would solve your issue with the 4 target emails.
OOO! OOO!!
I wrote docs for this at my new job. :-)
T-Mobile
Format: 10-digit cell phone number @ tmomail.net
Example: [email protected]
Verizon Wireless
Format: 10-digit cell phone number @ vtext.com
Example: [email protected]
Rogers Wireless
Format: 10-digit cell phone number @ pcs.rogers.com
Example: [email protected]
Sprint PCS
Format: 10-digit cell phone number @ messaging.sprintpcs.com
Example: [email protected]
Cingular Wireless
Format: 1 + 10-digit cell phone number @ cingularme.com
Example: [email protected]
AT&T PCS
Format: 10-digit cell phone number @ mobile.att.net
Example: [email protected]
Bell Atlantic
Format: 10-digit cell phone number @ message.bam.com
Example: [email protected]
Bell Mobility (Canada)
Format: 10-digit cell phone number @ txt.bell.ca
Example: [email protected]
Cellular One
Format: 10-digit cell phone number @ mobile.celloneusa.com
Example: [email protected]
Comcast
Format: 10-digit cell phone number @ comcastpcs.textmsg.com
Example: [email protected]
Fido
Format: 10-digit cell phone number @ fido.ca
Example: [email protected]
Telus
Format: 10-digit cell phone number @ msg.telus.com
Example: [email protected]
Sounds like it might be worth a call to T-Mobile…SOMEONE over there knows how to make their shit work, lol!!
Glad you’re off to a good start. :-)
Yeah, thanks to all here for the tips. Looks like the email approach is the best overall, and I had no idea you could do that (turns out my 16 year old daughter knew that, though, LOL!)
Haha, kids these days, eh?
Hope you’re able to get everything you need.
Data24-7 offers a service where you can look-up your cell phone numbers and get back the carrier name and the email addresses to use to send text messages and MMS messages to the phones. The service takes into account number portability, so if somebody changes their carrier the changes will be reflected by the service in almost real-time. data24-7.com
Just a minor point. If this is for downtime alerting you probably want to investigate running your own SMS gateway, otherwise if your internet link goes down it will be impossible for SMSes to get out.
You just responded to a spambot.
Reported.
Bumping a 3 year old thread?
REPORTED
Fuck!