Email to SMS gateway on 2degrees?

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Baboon

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#173511 26-May-2015 09:29

2degrees customer support say there is no email to SMS gateway, but I wonder if there's a third party solution? I'm used to all my U.S. friends automatically having this service, but here in NZ it's either costly or nonexistent, it seems. That said, I would pay a modest fee to have such a service.

TIA! :-)

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#1311866 26-May-2015 10:35

You've heard of email right? :)

Baboon

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#1311905 26-May-2015 11:27

Your point being?

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SaltyNZ

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#1311910 26-May-2015 11:35

2degrees do not support this service, and if we notice third-party services that purport to offer it, we will look to block them. This is because email to SMS is a brilliant way to cause a giant spam problem. If you happen to find a 3rd party service that we haven't blocked, then I would suggest that it would be a bad move to build your business around it continuing to work.

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qyiet

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#1311920 26-May-2015 11:43

SaltyNZ:This is because email to SMS is a brilliant way to cause a giant spam problem.

The one service I used (some time ago) that allowed for this got around the spam issue by having a whitelist of addresses allowed to send to the SMS address of any given phone. So anything trying to spam that address had to also guess the appropriate fake 'from' address as well.

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toyonut

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#1311924 26-May-2015 11:51

I am thinking his point is why email to text when you can just email. But that is not helpful and doesn't answer your question really.

For what it is worth, we use one on Vodafone for one of our monitoring servers. https://www.vodafone.co.nz/multiTXT/ works well but I am not sure how it works for non Vodafone customers.

There is also another service called textmagic, https://www.textmagic.com/ not cheap though. 13 cents per text. Slightly cheaper than the old prepay text rates but expensive in the world of practically free txt we live in now.

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Baboon

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#1311943 26-May-2015 12:48

*shrug* I guess there can be spam issues. I can only tell you all my U.S. friends have cellphonenumber@mobilecarrier.com email to SMS email addresses. It's just odd to be without here, but it's not like lack of this feature is crippling to me. Yup - there's always email. I just don't like using mobile data here in NZ where it's still very expensive.

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SaltyNZ

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#1311980 26-May-2015 13:29

Baboon: mobile data here in NZ where it's still very expensive.

I'm not sure what makes you say that. A quick check on Verizon leads to believe they want to charge me $65 USD plus taxes a month for 2GB of data. I don't know what it has in terms of calling and texting; it's not very clear. On 2degrees, $49 NZ gets you 2.5GB with unlimited calls and texts. That's a lot of emails.

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cyberhub

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#1312006 26-May-2015 13:48

Baboon: *shrug* I guess there can be spam issues. I can only tell you all my U.S. friends have cellphonenumber@mobilecarrier.com email to SMS email addresses. It's just odd to be without here, but it's not like lack of this feature is crippling to me. Yup - there's always email. I just don't like using mobile data here in NZ where it's still very expensive.

Well I have to say that an email to txt service like you mention would get lots of use if cheaply available here.

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Baboon

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#1312047 26-May-2015 14:38

AT&T has a USD$45 plan with _unlimited_ nationwide calls, TXTs, and data https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/plans/voice/sku7420265.html

But in the U.S. I just bought cheap burner phones and used the little WEP browsers on them - good enough to check on services, email, online banking, etc. I'd buy like USD$10 plans and they had enough data I'd run out of minutes before I even got close to data.

As for emails not using much data - text only email, sure. But with email come attachments, and links to webpages, and more. 2.5GB was only a lot back on dialup. Sure - NZ isn't as bad as it once was with mobile data pricing, but it's still a long way from being anything to write home about.

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n4

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#1312057 26-May-2015 14:43

Baboon: AT&T has a USD$45 plan with _unlimited_ nationwide calls, TXTs, and data https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/plans/voice/sku7420265.html

Actually that plan is limited to 1.5GB data per month, not unlimited. So, more expensive than $49NZD

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Baboon

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#1312058 26-May-2015 14:44

Actually it is unlimited:

"1.5GB high-speed data (up to 3G for basic and messaging phones); thereafter UNLIMITED [emphasis added] data usage at reduced speeds up to 128Kbps. Actual speeds vary by device and location. Rollover Data: Monthly unused high-speed data carries over for one 30-day renewal period."

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n4

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#1312063 26-May-2015 14:49

Baboon: Actually it is unlimited:

"1.5GB high-speed data (up to 3G for basic and messaging phones); thereafter UNLIMITED [emphasis added] data usage at reduced speeds up to 128Kbps. Actual speeds vary by device and location. Rollover Data: Monthly unused high-speed data carries over for one 30-day renewal period."

Well if you're happy using your phone as 128Kbps then fair enough. Not for me.

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SaltyNZ

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#1312153 26-May-2015 16:53

n4:
Baboon: Actually it is unlimited:

"1.5GB high-speed data (up to 3G for basic and messaging phones); thereafter UNLIMITED [emphasis added] data usage at reduced speeds up to 128Kbps. Actual speeds vary by device and location. Rollover Data: Monthly unused high-speed data carries over for one 30-day renewal period."

Well if you're happy using your phone as 128Kbps then fair enough. Not for me.

Especially not if you're sending emails with big attachments and links to web pages...

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Baboon

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#1312383 27-May-2015 00:20

128Kbps might not be much (though I recall it once being the pinnacle of envy in online gaming - people with ISDN lines owning dialup users, heh), but for email, light web use (as much mobile web browser use is), and pretty much anything but watching streamed video on the go, it works just fine. The only time it can be painful is if the phone or an app starts syncing or downloading an update or something else in the background. But most of that stuff can be limited to WiFi only in settings.

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grant_k

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#1312387 27-May-2015 00:29

Baboon: 128Kbps might not be much (though I recall it once being the pinnacle of envy in online gaming - people with ISDN lines owning dialup users, heh), but for email, light web use (as much mobile web browser use is), and pretty much anything but watching streamed video on the go, it works just fine.
...

My son was using an 'Unlimited' data plan like that when he paid us a visit recently. It is provided as part of his T-Mobile subscription, which sounds very similar to the AT&T offering in all respects. He was trying to use Google Maps while I was driving but the loading time was so long, it was faster just to read the road signs!

128kbps really doesn't cut it for much at all these days unless you like reading webpages that just have text and very little else.

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