Texting to/from the USA
 

I am based in the UK, but have close family in the US. I only see them once a month, so being able to stay in touch is pretty important. My family are on Cellular One in WV. In terms of UK networks, I am on O2. Oddly, I can receive texts from Cellular One phones, but cannot sucessfully reply to them.

Does anyone know which, if any, UK-based networks allow texting back and forth? I think T-Mobile works, but wondered if any others permitted this.

thanks

I know Verizon does not work with O2. O2 mobiles can receive Verizon txt but not the other way around. The reason for this according to 02 is the two companies don't have an agreement with each other.

I'd suspect Verizon would work with Vodafone since Vodafone is/was a part owner of Verizon Wireless.

I know that vodaphone will go to cingular as they are roaming partners. I have a vodaphone sim card, and I text to cingular to keep the sim alive. Here is where I am surprised. My t-mobile roams on cellular one when I am in western Md. It seems if you can receive you should be able to reply.

Can you send it as an e-mail instead? That's a fairly easy way to get around it.

this page

http://www.notepage.net/smtp.htm

has the format for which cellular one they have, though I always try

[email protected] first, that usually works for any carrier so you don't have to go through all that.

Not exactly UK to US but I was texting German Vodaphone to Canadian Bell. That seems to work back and forth.

/E

Get an email address
 

If you can get an email address for your phone you should be ok. For example, the email for Verizon phones is the phone number @vtext.com. You may also be able to get a customized address from your provider; check their website or your account. Sending to just a phone number may or may not work, but sending to an email address should work. (This seems to be how it works and it works for me, but I'm certainly not an expert.)

When I was on O2 UK, I could not receive any texts from my family on Verizon in the UK. Curiously, they said they were able to recieve my texts.

My friend on AT&T mobile was able to successfully receive and send to me on O2 UK.

T-mobile seems to work everywhere I've gone in Europe, to anyone I wanted to Text. In Australia and New Zealand as well.

This is US-based T-mobile and not Uk based however.

Texting between the UK and the US is always hit and miss - at least that's been my experience over many years using all sorts of combinations of networks, with both US numbers and UK subscribers roaming in the US.

Sometimes it doesn't work at all. Sometimes it works in one direction but not the other.

As others have mentioned US cellphones often come with email addresses (the usual format being some variation of "number@network"). I can text American friends by sending email to their phone numbers (and they can reply, and the reply arrives by email), but we can't reliably communicate phone-to-phone.

I have vodafone in the UK which doesnt receive texts from the US so I use my cingular (AT&T) simcard and text from the UK to the US no problem

hmm...you'd think that Vodafone/Verizon would work, as Verizon is partially owned by Vodafone.

I was able to successfully text Vodafone numbers in both the UK and Australia from my Sprint phone on consistent basis.

From my experience (and what I've read elsewhere, and it's also listed as a problem on telestial.com at least with Passport global SIM cards), GSM phones can SEND to CDMA networks (Alltel/CellOne/Verizon/SprintNextel) in the US. However, many (not all) GSM SIM phones based outside of the US cannot receive texts from US CDMA phones.

YMMV, but that's what I've encountered. In fact, Verizon Wireless can't even send SMS messages to every country. But they'll gladly charge you for the attempt. I got charged $1.25 for five attempts to text an Estonian mobile phone - Estonian carriers are not on Verizon's list of supported global SMS recipients. I had to spend 45 minutes on the phone to get that cleared up.

I am with Vodafone in the UK and regularly send/receive texts to the US (both individual and "reply".)
I also have a US T--mobile pre-pay phone for when I am in the US. I can also send / receive texts the the UK whilst I am in the US with no problems to both Orange and Vodafone

My boyfriend (UK) has Vodafone and I (US) have Verizon. If I were to show you the monthly billing charges you would see that sadly, texts go quite easily between the two. I pay more for the texts than I do the regular phone time.

nothing ever works on Vodafone! The signal is so weak where I live that I dont even bother charging the phone most days!