I have a blackberry torch and have yahoo messenger on it. I remember from my last phone which was an LG Android Optimus that had yahoo messenger, i could use a separate feature called SMS messaging which basically allowed me to send free texts to other people in America using my data plan. Costing both me and the other person nothing. But since i got the torch, yahoo doesn't seem to have this feature even though it said it has SMS messaging on it. When i click messaging options for a contact on yahoo messenger, it just shows call or text. But when i hit text it just takes me back to the original texting from my blackberry instead of yahoo. So that leaves me wondering if yahoo messenger has that same SMS option or not. If not is their any other applications like yahoo i can use so i can send texts to America without costing them anything. Like Blackberry messenger, I could use that to text Americans who had a blackberry as well with minimal data using on their part.

It may simply be that your carrier has discovered how to block free texts. Most carriers have found it to their advantage to block or limit some services that people do not pay for. Some phones cannot block selected items and some can. I found it seems to be something that was eliminated by Yahoo.

I know there are free cell text sites but I would suspect they also will use the numbers to send ads and other spam.