Web-to-SMS Gateways

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.

Google Voice

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.

Requirements to Sign Up

• A Google Account
  • An existing e-mail address
  • A normal, SMS capable phone(Temporarily)
  • Name or Psuedonym
  • Pass a Captcha(Requiring Javascript)
• A normal, SMS capable phone(Temporarily)

Pro's(FEATURES!)

• Extremely easy to use(Once you manage to sign up).
• Uses proper TLS
• Gives you a fixed, long-term phone number for other people to text.
• Least obnoxious user-interface of any of the options.
• Voicemail! People who call you can leave voice mail messages

Con's(Basically, Google.)

• Very difficult to sign up for an account. Requires an account with Google, which requires at various times for you to have the ability to recieve SMS already, which sort of defeats the purpose. Borrow a cell phone when you sign up.
• You have a long-term account tied to a long-term phone number corresponding to you, and it's very difficult to sign up for a new account. Per every single reasonable person's expectations, GOOGLE KNOWS WHO YOU ARE.
• Voicemail Transcription! Google uses your voicemail for practice teaching machines to recognize spoken words and turning them into text. Sometimes poorly, but more importantly, it means that Google is also listening to your voicemail.
• General Google intrusiveness.

TextNow

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.

Requirements to Sign Up

• An e-mail address
• Name or Pseudonym
• Pass a Captcha(Requiring Javascript)

Pro's

• Pretty easy to sign up for.
• Uses proper TLS
• Gives you a semi long-term phone number for other people to text.
• Familiar, reasonably rich user interface.

Con's

• Not a whole lot. It's pretty javascript heavy, but an ad-blocking hosts file, a well-configured NoScript policy, or just using the Tor browser improve client-side performance considerably.

TextPort

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.

Requirements to Sign Up

• Strictly speaking, signup is not required for sending outgoing messages.
• An e-mail address
• Name or Pseudonym
• Pass a Captcha(No javascript requirement)

Pro's

• Signup not required for Outgoing Messages
• Easiest signup
• No javascript required
• No long-term number, instead it uses aliases for numbers that cycle eventually.

Con's

• Doesn't properly use TLS. Go to Let's Encrypt guys. Get it together.
• Least nice interface.
• No long-term number, instead it uses aliases for numbers that cycle eventually.

Shortcomings of Web-to-SMS Gateways

• Lack of Signal/Axolotl Integration: While, with Google Voice, you can indeed use the Signal protocol, with most of these Web-to-SMS gateways, you can't use the wonderful Signal messaging system available to regular phone users.
• Lack of iMessage Integration: Same as above, except the iMessage protocol is also more-or-less impossible for non-iDevices to talk to until Apple lets others talk to their devices. Install Signal iUsers, the rest of the world will thank you.
• Single Point of Failure: Much like traditional cell phone companies, and in some ways, worse, the Web-to-SMS gateway becomes a centralized point of failure, in that if it fails, bans your account, or you are kept from connecting by anything else, something you're dependent on for messaging also fails. Centralized organizations all share this weakness and can't really be expected to be reliable, whether thay are phone companies or traditional web services.

Send SMS with a Curl One-Liner

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

The Open Wireless Movement

The Open Wireless Movement is a movement started by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and various other organizations that have the best interests of electronic and computer users. The Open Wireless Movement aligns well with the goals of phone-free people because it allows them to electively choose what wi-fi connect to and when, rather than requiring them to be connected to a data plan all the time.

• Official Website, OpenWireless.org

The Cord-Cutters

The Cord-Cutters are people who, for reasons of their own, have chosen to eschew one-to-many media sources when they are outside of the control of the consumer. Where the Cord-Cutters focus on one-to-many media, the phone-free focus on retaking control of the one-to-one connections facilitated largely by telephone technology.