Teleflip is a message routing service that has been referred to in other threads. It allows you to send messages to any cell phone in North America as long as you have their phone number without sending SMS. This was perhaps most interesting to those on the iDEN services as the 7500 series support incoming SMS only.
FYI - The Teleflip service operates by determining the destination cell phone's network and routing the message to that phone as an email eg: (phone #)@teleflip.com becomes (phone #)@pcs.rogers.com or whatever the recipient's network format is for email to phones. This is handy if you can't remember the format or don't know what network the recipient is on.
The Point
I thought you should be aware that since it is being sent as an email and not a text message, the recipient MUST have a data plan to receive it. This should be no concern for BB recipients, but many cellular users do not have data access.
End result - If I SMS my wife's cell (no data), the message pops up on her phone (free of charge on Rogers). If I send a message via teleflip to her, she gets a message from Rogers saying there is an incoming message that can only be read if she activates a data plan. I am going to guess that some services would not even notify the user if they had no data plan activated.
Just thought you should know that while this service has some potential benefits it has limitations as well that may result in the recipient not being able to read the message.
MM
BTW - I'm not affiliated in any way. I just thought it looked like a time saver and tested it out.
Doing the direct emails won't be different from @teleflip.com ... The same problems will happen. (So there's not much point avoiding teleflip, unless there are other problems with it)
The only way to avoid the problem is a direct SMS text message, bypassing email.
I use to use teleflip to send emails to a few different cell phones. My friends on Rogers use to be able to receive and read them no problem. Without data plans.
Now, without any plan changes, the message comes up. "There is a text message waiting. Reply with READ to read it." If they reply to Rogers with the word "READ" I believe then the full message gets sent to them. Sounds like a way for rogers to make an extra $.15 to me.
It was working fine when I last tried it to a Bell phone and Telus phone without a data plan. No need to reply. The message went through right away.
Teleflip and Rogers FYI
