California DEN

Cell phones seem to work just about everywhere these days.  Internet
access also seems to be just about everywhere these days as well.  Last
week, I found myself in a situation where I had internet access, but no
telephone service whatsoever.  I was at the Discovery National
Institute in the Carribbean and there were many things I needed to
communicate to the outside world. Email was just too slow.  What to do?

I
used a service called Teleflip to send text messages to my friends cell
phones…from my email.  The basic part of this service is free.  You
enter your friend’s telephone number followed by @teleflip.com
(7605551212@teleflip.com).  Your email goes right to their phone!  I
usually take off any signature I may have to avoid using the character
limit.  When I get a text back, it goes to my email account.  I can
then see the actual email address that Teleflip sent the text to, such
as 7605551212@messaging.sprint.com.  I generally put that in my contact
book to have for future reference. 

I find this service very useful for sending out texts to larger numbers of people too.  There are few other services that do similar things, but I find this one to be simple and effective.  If you search the web, you can even find widgets to embed in a webpage that will allow people to text you directly from your website or aggregator .
Teleflp also has a free service that will allow you to forward your
email to your cell phone (without additional data plans.  Happy texting!