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Send text messages to Germany?

Agent-P

Agent-P

Contributor
Original poster
Dec 5, 2009
2,502
23
The Tri-State Area
So I'm here in the US, and my girlfriend is moving to Germany next week. Is there an app of some sort I can use to text her local number when she gets a new phone there? Her phone may not necessarily be an iPhone. I'm trying to avoid either of us from having to pay extra by texting overseas. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, feel free to move it.
 
govena said:
So I'm here in the US, and my girlfriend is moving to Germany next week. Is there an app of some sort I can use to text her local number when she gets a new phone there? Her phone may not necessarily be an iPhone. I'm trying to avoid either of us from having to pay extra by texting overseas. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, feel free to move it.
Click to expand...

easiest way is if she has a iphone/android/blackberry there are a few apps thats are available on all 3
whatsapp, pingchat, to name a few that lets you send messages regardless the country the users are in
 
I would agree with the above poster. Assuming she will be using a phone that has a data plan (even if it's not an iPhone), use Instant Messaging to chat (it would be free).

AIM, MSN, Yahoo etc...
 
iisforiphone said:
easiest way is if she has a iphone/android/blackberry there are a few apps thats are available on all 3
whatsapp, pingchat, to name a few that lets you send messages regardless the country the users are in
Click to expand...

FSMBP said:
I would agree with the above poster. Assuming she will be using a phone that has a data plan (even if it's not an iPhone), use Instant Messaging to chat (it would be free).

AIM, MSN, Yahoo etc...
Click to expand...

So there isn't anything like TextPlus that will let me text non-smartphones outside the US? I'm just not sure yet if she's gonna get a smartphone as she isn't a gadget addict like I am :D
 
govena said:
So there isn't anything like TextPlus that will let me text non-smartphones outside the US? I'm just not sure yet if she's gonna get a smartphone as she isn't a gadget addict like I am :D
Click to expand...

your best alternative that ive seen is you jailbreak your phone get biteSMS then you can send regular style SMS to dumbphones, what you do is buy BITE credits it allows you to sent international SMS for i think 10 cents which is much cheaper then what your carrier would charge you
 
govena said:
So I'm here in the US, and my girlfriend is moving to Germany next week. Is there an app of some sort I can use to text her local number when she gets a new phone there? Her phone may not necessarily be an iPhone. I'm trying to avoid either of us from having to pay extra by texting overseas. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, feel free to move it.
Click to expand...


I use WhatsApp to text family and friends in other countries.
Works flawlessly.
 
govena said:
So I'm here in the US, and my girlfriend is moving to Germany next week. Is there an app of some sort I can use to text her local number when she gets a new phone there?
Click to expand...

I have a lady friend in Munich, which does not have a smart phone. But we are able to "text" each other for free. This is how.
Since I'm on AT&T, she can send an email to yournumber@txt.att.net. Then I will receive her email as a text file.
How on her end, she set it up with her carrier to allow this. Then she added my email address as a valid sender. Then I will send an email to her phone, which she receive via text.
She can then "respond" to my texts (email) and it comes back to me as a text.
Make sense?
 
Maskusee said:
I use WhatsApp to text family and friends in other countries.
Works flawlessly.
Click to expand...

Does WhatsApp let you send messages to their non-smartphones from your iPhone?

iceterminal said:
I have a lady friend in Munich, which does not have a smart phone. But we are able to "text" each other for free. This is how.
Since I'm on AT&T, she can send an email to yournumber@txt.att.net. Then I will receive her email as a text file.
How on her end, she set it up with her carrier to allow this. Then she added my email address as a valid sender. Then I will send an email to her phone, which she receive via text.
She can then "respond" to my texts (email) and it comes back to me as a text.
Make sense?
Click to expand...

I completely forgot about this feature. I'll just have to have her get help setting that up when she gets there since she isn't too tech savvy. I'll probably end up doing this if I can't find a simple app solution.
 
govena said:
I completely forgot about this feature. I'll just have to have her get help setting that up when she gets there since she isn't too tech savvy. I'll probably end up doing this if I can't find a simple app solution.
Click to expand...

Here is a link for the carriers in Germany, and for emailing a text message.
http://www.mutube.com/projects/open-email-to-sms/gateway-list/
GERMANY
0n@t-d1-sms.de T-Mobile
0n@vodafone-sms.de Vodafone
0n@o2online.de O2
0n@smsmail.eplus.de E-Plus

So if she is on O2, you'd EMAIL 0HerNumber@o2online.de and she would receive it as a text. However, on her account page she has to set YOUR email address as a valid sender. Its very simple to do. For her to send, she just sends an email to your AT&T address. No set up needed.
 
iceterminal said:
Here is a link for the carriers in Germany, and for emailing a text message.
http://www.mutube.com/projects/open-email-to-sms/gateway-list/
GERMANY
0n@t-d1-sms.de T-Mobile
0n@vodafone-sms.de Vodafone
0n@o2online.de O2
0n@smsmail.eplus.de E-Plus

So if she is on O2, you'd EMAIL 0HerNumber@o2online.de and she would receive it as a text. However, on her account page she has to set YOUR email address as a valid sender. Its very simple to do. For her to send, she just sends an email to your AT&T address. No set up needed.
Click to expand...

I completely forgot about these methods overseas. Many asian countries have a similar setup. Definitely comes in handy every now and then.
 
iceterminal said:
Here is a link for the carriers in Germany, and for emailing a text message.
http://www.mutube.com/projects/open-email-to-sms/gateway-list/
GERMANY
0n@t-d1-sms.de T-Mobile
0n@vodafone-sms.de Vodafone
0n@o2online.de O2
0n@smsmail.eplus.de E-Plus

So if she is on O2, you'd EMAIL 0HerNumber@o2online.de and she would receive it as a text. However, on her account page she has to set YOUR email address as a valid sender. Its very simple to do. For her to send, she just sends an email to your AT&T address. No set up needed.
Click to expand...

Oh, thank you for this. That'll come in handy.
 
govena said:
Oh, thank you for this. That'll come in handy.
Click to expand...

Just one thing to look out for with that - dumbphones treat that as an MMS message, not a text message (to send, that is). So if she has unlimited data or MMS it'll be fine, but otherwise might incur charges depending on carrier.
 
iceterminal said:
I have a lady friend in Munich, which does not have a smart phone. But we are able to "text" each other for free. This is how.
Since I'm on AT&T, she can send an email to yournumber@txt.att.net. Then I will receive her email as a text file.
How on her end, she set it up with her carrier to allow this. Then she added my email address as a valid sender. Then I will send an email to her phone, which she receive via text.
She can then "respond" to my texts (email) and it comes back to me as a text.
Make sense?
Click to expand...

Pretty slick.
 
FSMBP said:
I would agree with the above poster. Assuming she will be using a phone that has a data plan (even if it's not an iPhone), use Instant Messaging to chat (it would be free).

AIM, MSN, Yahoo etc...
Click to expand...

I know also that at least with AIM you can chat to a cell phone number and on that number the incoming will show up as a text, but you wouldn't be charged for texting since you were just using the AIM chat interface.
 
I'll hop on and say that using a IM app will be a lot easier than texting and figuring out how not to get charged for it. Just make sure you have push and alerts on and you can just gchat or what have you like you were texting.
 
Another possible solution I have thought of: using Twitter. Right now I have my Twitter set up to send me a text when I get mentioned and I can reply to that sms and have it post back on Twitter. Would this also work in Germany with her local number? If this works, it would be much more simple to setup.
 
govena said:
Another possible solution I have thought of: using Twitter. Right now I have my Twitter set up to send me a text when I get mentioned and I can reply to that sms and have it post back on Twitter. Would this also work in Germany with her local number? If this works, it would be much more simple to setup.
Click to expand...

Lol clever idea. No reason it shouldn't work - especially if she sets up hers the same way :)
 
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