Text message over Wi-Fi (with your at&t number)?

[ziggyonice]

Does anybody know of any way to receive/send text messages over a wifi connection? I'm not talking about one of those "free text message" apps... but rather some means of checking my iPhone's texts when I don't have service.

I work in a building where I constantly have no service, but I do have wifi... any ideas?

[nickspohn]

It's not possible to receive texts, but since you did say send/receive, you can go on the AT&T website and send texts through that. But of course, you can't see the ones you receive there though.

[ziggyonice]

Hmm... I didn't know about the option to send them through the site. Sucks that you can't receive them that way though.

Thanks for the help.

[andreab35]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

There are apps in the App Store that give you some texting options.
There is something called InfiniteSMS you can use with a Gmail account to send and receive free texts over WiFi.

[ppc750fx]

The only way you could receive texts over WiFi would be if your friends sent them to their carrier's SMS->email gateway. You can send them that way though -- most carriers provide some sort of e-mail->SMS gateway, so you could just use Mail and a WiFi connection to e-mail your friends' gateway addresses.

[Dr. Cabrera]

text messages are sent through cellular towers, so unless you have cell phone reception, you will not receive the text message, there's really not any way around that


why not use e-mails when you don't have text abilities ?

[ppc750fx]

Originally Posted by Dr. Cabrera

text messages are sent through cellular towers, so unless you have cell phone reception, you will not receive the text message, there's really not any way around that

You mean received, right? There *are* non-GSM transit options for outbound SMS...

[Jason B]

I've been using an app called textfree. It works great, but you have to use a different phone #. When I'm out of the country, and only have wifi, I can contact ANYONE, but as I said, it makes you use a different phone #. I'm wondering if there is a way to text over wifi, with keeping your same phone #.

imessage I think would work with "your number" but they other person would have to have imessage too. Am I right?

[blevins321]

Originally Posted by ziggyonice

Hmm... I didn't know about the option to send them through the site. Sucks that you can't receive them that way though.

Thanks for the help.

Unfortunately, none of the domestic iPhone carriers support UMA-based GSM transmission. T-Mobile and Cincinnati Bell are two carriers I know of that (on manufacturer-supported phones) support a feature that creates a cell connection via a straight Wifi signal. My old Cincy Bell Blackberry supported this feature. Routed calls and texts through my Wifi signal using a secured VPN connection to carrier servers. I believe the latest version of the Android OS supports this feature, but again only on carriers that choose to support it.

It's too bad the "Big 3" don't have the infrastructure to take advantage of this; as it would help to cut down on service complaints and congestion.

[Savor]

Just get a Google Voice number. Then use the official GV iPhone app for it. Not the best, but it works and you can also just reply through GMail.

There is an app called Talkatone that works as a VOIP app for your GV# and can also receive texts. Awesome app. Been calling my family and friends for free. My iPhone 4 is locked and on airplane mode, but it can still be used as my internet phone to call the U.S. thanks to that app.

[takeshi74]

Originally Posted by Dr. Cabrera

text messages are sent through cellular towers, so unless you have cell phone reception, you will not receive the text message, there's really not any way around that

Not with GV (not relevant to the OP) or iMessage, etc but you are correct about "traditional" text messaging.

Originally Posted by Savor

Just get a Google Voice number. Then use the official GV iPhone app for it. Not the best, but it works and you can also just reply through GMail.

Read the OP again. Unless the OP's able and willing to port then GV isn't relevant. GV is exactly what I use to do what the OP is asking (minus using the carrier assigned number) as coverage isn't reliable with any carrier in the tower I work in.

You can send/receive SMS via the GV site as well. If you use Chrome there's a very handy GV extension.

[noroads4rubicon]

try app call whatsapp. I think it should do what you want.

[Interstella5555]

Hopefully they figured it out in the last 3 years.