Web-to-SMS gateways are web sites which are dedicated to allowing you to send or recieve messages to and/or from devices which use SMS as their primary form of textual communication, such as Cell Phones. While many of them require you to pay money to use them, a few can be used for free, and some don't require much information about you to use. While they do offer some privacy advantages from the ability to register new accounts without volunteering the intrusive amount of information required by other ways of talking to cell phones, but Hands down, the primary advantage of Web-to-SMS gateways for phoneless people is EASE OF USE when contacting people who only use phones. They do not offer any particularly tenable improvements to privacy in the long term, but they make it super easy for people who choose not to use cell phones to interact with those who do. The services listed on this page are all Free of Cost, but none of them are Free as in Freedom.
Far and away the hardest to get, requiring the most information and only available to people who can use a US phone number already, but also the most flexible and best supported, Google Voice is pretty much a one-stop-shop for Web-to-Phone services. Google Account holders who wish to sign up for a Google Voice account will need to use an existing phone number capable of recieving SMS messages to confirm your eligibility for an account.
With Google Voice, you'll be able to send and recieve text messages from a normal-looking phone number, which will remain your phone number for as long as you have your Google Voice account.
With the addition of a tablet or a deactivated/repurposed smartphone, you can install the Google Voice app, which will also allow you to make phone calls to and from the number using only Wi-Fi, and without requiring a data plan. This feature isn't shared by any other Web-to-SMS gateway I know of.
Balancing some of the features of both Google Voice and TextPort is TextNow. Textnow requires less information than Google Voice, and it works without an account from another service. They operate phone services and phone services only, and your account is only used for your phone services.
With TextNow, sending and recieving text messages is possible for anyone who can complete a captcha. It does not include Voicemail yet, but it appears that Voicemail and Calling are planned features.
All in all, I'd say TextNow is the best all-around option for people cutting the phone cord.
Much much easier to get, but much less flexible and carrying some various security issues, TextPort is another worthwhile option for sending SMS messages from the Web. TextPort is much less refined-looking compared to the other options. It's included on this list because it doesn't require an account in order to send outgoing messages.
It has fewer features than any of the others, and it also has issues with TLS that make it unsuitable in terms of security. That said, it's easy to use, doesn't require an account for outgoing, doesn't require activation should you choose to use an account to recieve incoming messages.
Sending a text through a Web-to-SMS gateway is fine, but like, 99% of the time, a web-based GUI is overkill. That goes for way more than just text messages too. I certainly don't bother with web-based e-mail clients if I don't have to. So instead of dealing with the WWW's nonsense, for outgoing text messages you can use this simple Curl one-liner to talk to a Web-to-SMS gateway known as TextBelt.
curl http://textbelt.com/text -d "number=$NUMBER" -d "message=$SHORTMESSAGE"
Or, for quick access, you can add it to your .bash_aliases file!
~
send_text(){
\curl http://textbelt.com/text -d "number=$1" -d "message=$2"
}
alias sms=send_text
Way cooler than the Web-to-SMS gateways, but slightly more difficult to use, are Email-to-SMS gateways. These are portals that you can send an email to and have it forwarded immediately(more-or-less) to a phone number. This way, you can communicate with a phone without depending on someone else's web site and you can do it from any email capable device without any modification to the software. If you can send an email, you can use an Email-to-SMS gateway.
Email-to-SMS gateways are run by the service providers that provide phone plans, which unfortunately means that in order to use an Email-to-SMS gateway you need to know the carrier of your contact's phone service. If it's emblazoned on the back of their phones, like on many Verizon and AT&T phones, which Email-to-SMS gateway to use is easy to determine, though, and shouldn't deter you.
First things first, you will need to figure out what the email address of your contact's phone is. This email is automatically generated, activated, and most importantly, assigned by the contact's phone carrier, which makes the address easy to guess. Simply write down the phone number:
7168675309
and look up the carrier in this chart to create something like this:
7168675309@txt.att.net
and optionally, add it to your email contacts.
Now, you need to compose the message like an email. You got the address of the relevant phone in the first step, enter it in the Address field of your email client. Next you'll need to enter something in the subject line, but there is a little bit of variability in how it's handled. Many, perhaps most, maybe all smartphones will display the subject as an actual subject line, but with some flip phones, you might get mixed results. If you think you're texting a flip phone, then what I would do is just make the subject line exactly the same as the message body, and make them both less than 140 characters long.
Once you have an address and a subject line, and if you're sure you're messaging a smartphone, you can compose the message body(Remember, if you were messaging a flip phone then you made the subject and the message body exactly the same, in order to guarantee the delivery of your intended message). In this case, you don't even have a character limit, but it's probably a good idea to keep your messages down to a courteous length, something that you think will fit conveniently in about 50% of a smartphone screen. They'll be presented to the recipient exactly as you send them, not split into multiple 140-character sections.
Depending on which carrier the person you're trying to reach with your message, you can also trigger the sending of an MMS message over the Email-to-SMS gateway by attaching your image or short video to the email.
Finally, you can send the message you've composed. Just click the send button on your email client and it will head on it's way through the gateway. When your contact recieves the email, he or she will be able to send you a message at your email address, and you'll be able to carry on a normal conversation with an SMS user using only a normal email account.
BONUS! Turns out, it's possible to use OpenKeyChain to encrypt and decrypt SMS messages, which means that with this method, you can do GPG encrypted messages between your email client and your SMS contact. See this Reddit Thread for now, tutorial forthcoming.
Before I begin, this procedure requires a Google account and all that entails. If you don't want to do that, don't bother with it. It's Google Messenger.
So far, I've covered alot about how to send SMS without a connection to a phone network, but haven't said anything about voice calls. Doing voice calls to a phone number without another corresponding phone number is hard, but fortunately there is a workaround. Google Messenger is uniquely capable of making phone calls to many phones without necessarily needing to install the app or even have a phone-like device, it can be used as a browser extension from any PC capable of running Chrome. Unfortunately, this solution will only allow you to make outgoing calls, so make sure to leave a callback number, such as Google Voice, if you leave a message. The other drawback, of course, is Google, who make their money by marketing data based on your activity to advertisers, so make sure you read the privacy policy to make sure it fits your needs. Without further ado, let's jump right in.
Depending on your platform, you'll need to either install the Google Hangouts app for Android or iOS,
On Android, it's only possible to get the Hangout's application from the Google Play Store as far as I can tell. There appear to be third party clients for Hangouts on the Amazon App Store, but I haven't tried them yet. For Android, Hangouts comes in two apps, the Hangouts Client and the Hangouts Dialer, which enables you to connect to regular phones and integrate your Google Voice information.
I don't have an iOS device. I'd appreciate a report of someone running Hangouts on a non-jailbroken iPod. To do so, see the Github issues or post in the r/phoneless subreddit.
With Windows, Mac, and Linux PC's there is only one Hangouts client and it's a Chrome browser extension. This, of course, requires you to install Chrome(Or another Chrome based browser such as Iridium, but your mileage may vary and you will have to hack a bit to get the extension installed and running) to satisfy the needs of it's environment. Then you'll need to install the extension from the Chrome store.
If you have a Google Voice account, you can also link your Google Hangouts account to your Google Voice verified number, which allows you to make calls with a long-term phone number that will show up on caller ID, allowing other users to call you back. This allows you to have a pretty much feature-complete voice calling solution with zero dependence on a paid phone plan from a phone company. Simply signing up for Hangouts and Voice from the same Google account, and signing in to them on the same browser or device should link the accounts.
Once you've got the apps installed and configured, you can use them to make phone calls.
On Android, launch the Hangouts Dialer app and dial your first number. It's pretty much just like the regular dialer application, maybe even a little nicer. Call a friend's phone and on the Caller ID you'll see your Google Voice number.
On PC, you can launch your Chrome browser and you'll see the Hangouts extension in the top-right corner next to the menu. Launching it will start the Hangouts app, which will be visible in your task bar even after you close Chrome. From the app, you can enter a phone number and verify the process in exactly the same way one would on Android.