I hate texting. I mean I love the convenience of being able to send a message saying “I’ll be right there” or “running late” or “sorry about laughing at your Crocs, they look good, really.” I just hate typing on my Motorola Razor phone. Sure I could upgrade to one of those nicer phones with the well laid out keyboard, but I like to let me phones completely die before I buy a new one.. I do the same with cars and shoes.
Teleflip made life easy for me the past couple years. I’m chained to my laptop the way most people are chained to their cell phones now, so the fact that Teleflip allowed me to text people just by emailing their phone number @teleflip.com (310.555.1234@teleflip.com) made me a less frustrated member of the texting world. Sure there would be people that would see the email came from my email address and opt to text me back via my phone (why would you do that) but I would ignore those texts and instead try to classically condition all of my friends to “hit me up on my email.”
The the day came, Teleflip began letting me down. Starting last week, all of my email texts came back as undeliverable. I soldiered on, continuing to email my texts to everyone, only to find more bounced emails, usually several hours or even days later. Today I decided I’d have to check in with Teleflip to see what the deal is. I found this on SoCalTech.com
Report: Teleflip Goes Under
According to a report, Los Angeles-based Teleflip, which operates a service which connects your email to any SMS phone, has shut down its services. According to technology blog GigaOm, Teleflip sent an email to subscribers this week saying that the firm will close down services Friday. Teleflip was venture backed by GRP Partners, and had also received debt financing from Hercules Technology Growth Capital. Tony Davis, the firm’s CEO, did not respond to emails requesting comment, nor did the firm’s investors at GRP Partners. Teleflip was founded in 2004, but only received funding in September of 2006.
You will be missed Teleflip, if there’s some sort of ceremony with free drinks I will be there. Now, I must move on. Here are other ways to email a text message to someone, though at this point I’m not sure if you have to know what cellular service they use. List provided by EmailTextMessages.com
US & Canadian Carriers
3 River Wireless
- 10digitphonenumber@sms.3rivers.net
ACS Wireless
- 10digitphonenumber@paging.acswireless.com
Alltel
- 10digitphonenumber@message.alltel.com
AT&T
- 10digitphonenumber@txt.att.net
Blue Sky Frog
- 10digitphonenumber@blueskyfrog.com
Bluegrass Cellular
- 10digitphonenumber@sms.bluecell.com
Boost Mobile
- 10digitphonenumber@myboostmobile.com
BPL Mobile
- 10digitphonenumber@bplmobile.com
Carolina West Wireless
- 10digit10digitnumber@cwwsms.com
Cellular One
- 10digitphonenumber@mobile.celloneusa.com
Cellular South
- 10digitphonenumber@csouth1.com
Centennial Wireless
- 10digitphonenumber@cwemail.com
CenturyTel
- 10digitphonenumber@messaging.centurytel.net
Cingular (Now AT&T)
- 10digitphonenumber@txt.att.net
Clearnet
- 10digitphonenumber@msg.clearnet.com
Comcast
- 10digitphonenumber@comcastpcs.textmsg.com
Corr Wireless Communications
- 10digitphonenumber@corrwireless.net
Dobson
- 10digitphonenumber@mobile.dobson.net
Edge Wireless
- 10digitphonenumber@sms.edgewireless.com
Golden Telecom
- 10digitphonenumber@sms.goldentele.com
Helio
- 10digitphonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Houston Cellular
- 10digitphonenumber@text.houstoncellular.net
Idea Cellular
- 10digitphonenumber@ideacellular.net
Illinois Valley Cellular
- 10digitphonenumber@ivctext.com
Inland Cellular Telephone
- 10digitphonenumber@inlandlink.com
MCI
- 10digitphonenumber@pagemci.com
Metrocall
- 10digitpagernumber@page.metrocall.com
Metrocall 2-way
- 10digitpagernumber@my2way.com
Metro PCS
- 10digitphonenumber@mymetropcs.com
Midwest Wireless
- 10digitphonenumber@clearlydigital.com
Mobilcomm
- 10digitphonenumber@mobilecomm.net
MTS
- 10digitphonenumber@text.mtsmobility.com
Nextel
- 10digitphonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
OnlineBeep
- 10digitphonenumber@onlinebeep.net
PCS One
- 10digitphonenumber@pcsone.net
Public Service Cellular
- 10digitphonenumber@sms.pscel.com
Qwest
- 10digitphonenumber@qwestmp.com
Rogers AT&T Wireless
- 10digitphonenumber@pcs.rogers.com
Rogers Canada
- 10digitphonenumber@pcs.rogers.com
Satellink
- 10digitpagernumber.pageme@satellink.net
Southwestern Bell
- 10digitphonenumber@email.swbw.com
Sprint
- 10digitphonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Sumcom
- 10digitphonenumber@tms.suncom.com
Surewest Communicaitons
- 10digitphonenumber@mobile.surewest.com
T-Mobile
- 10digitphonenumber@tmomail.net
Telus
- 10digitphonenumber@msg.telus.com
Tracfone
- 10digitphonenumber@txt.att.net
Triton
- 10digitphonenumber@tms.suncom.com
Unicel
- 10digitphonenumber@utext.com
US Cellular
- 10digitphonenumber@email.uscc.net
Sprint
- 10digitphonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Sumcom
- 10digitphonenumber@tms.suncom.com
Surewest Communicaitons
- 10digitphonenumber@mobile.surewest.com
T-Mobile
- 10digitphonenumber@tmomail.net
Telus
- 10digitphonenumber@msg.telus.com
Triton
- 10digitphonenumber@tms.suncom.com
Unicel
- 10digitphonenumber@utext.com
US Cellular
- 10digitphonenumber@email.uscc.net
US West
- 10digitphonenumber@uswestdatamail.com
Verizon
- 10digitphonenumber@vtext.com
Virgin Mobile
- 10digitphonenumber@vmobl.com
West Central Wireless
- 10digitphonenumber@sms.wcc.net
Western Wireless
- 10digitphonenumber@cellularonewest.com
2 responses so far ↓
1 Stephanie B. // Sep 22, 2008
At our company we have text messaging block for all phones because it was costing us too much per month. At one time we were paying up to $4,000 in text messaging for Nextel alone! And we have 3,200 phones on Nextel. To work around that, we were having our 1,070 Blackberry users, on all our cell phone vendors, use Teleflip to text their customers. Now that Teleflip is down we have been researching to find something, anything similar to Teleflip that does not require us to download any type of software or register for any service, even if it is free. Has anyone found a service similar to Teleflip that would meet our needs?
2 Bobby // Oct 10, 2008
You may or may not find a company that can do that. The main reason is because they use the free email gateway (SMTP). These are getting shut down and you can also experience delayed messaging. There is a company called http://www.2sms.com. You have to pay for the messages but they send all their messages through a fully provisioned gateway. They work with companies that do daily messaging.
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