Dana’s problem texting internationally with Telus
I got this message in from Dana this morning who’s having a bit of trauma with her new Telus Mobility account in Canada. She can’t text internationally. Do you have any suggestions for her?
Came across your website earlier and thought …..well I think Ewan could probably help me out here!
I am based in Canada, with Telus Mobility. Basically have a Treo 750, and although was enjoying using my phone, and the plan I have with Telus I just realised that I cannot SMS some numbers internationally (limited to countries outside North America)
Was trying to sms a friend based in Egypt at the moment and he never got my message, but i do get his! Go figure! Telus tells me they do not have an agreement with certain phone providers and I am limited to the ones they do work with which is ridiculous.
No I am stuck with a 3-yr contract (600$ cancellation fee - totally my fault for even considering such a long contract!) and can’t switch over to Rogers the large competitor because of this!
I have been using Skype sms to send out messages to these friends but I need to be logged online to do so.
I am wondering if there is a way I could sms from my mobile to some ‘place’ which could redirect my messages to my recipient, and be able to get those messages back?
I am worried that to download Skype Mobile means I have to always log on to a browser which will cost me huge amounts in data fees! We have the worst plans here in Canada in comparison to the US.
Appreciate any direction you could provide!
Hi Ewan, Dana.
To get right to the point, Dana you could sign up for a service like 3jam http://www.3jam.com or even Twitter and find out if you cand send texts to their US based numbers.
I can recommend 3jam as especially suited for your purpose if the number you sen the texts to works for you. It’s private, friends can be added via sms on the fly and much more.
With Twitter you would have to have your friends sign up online (you can invite them via email now) first and then make your page private as that restricts the public from seeing your messages to each other.
In regards to your operator Telus’ inability to guarantee the delivery of your texts to certain international phone numbers: this all to common, unfortunately. It seems that mobile carriers can only guarantee the delivery of text messages to their roaming partners overseas. The emphasis is on ‘guarantee’ here as texts may still be received by your overseas contacts even though their provider doesn’t have a roaming agreement with your provider.
It’s all very confusing and monopolistic in some way. And why the delivery of tiny text messages is such a hassle whereas at the same time calling those same overseas numbers works flawlessly, is beyond me.
I have been having this issue for quite a while now and it helps to get on the operators back and demand an inquiry why your messages are not being received. After all, they charge you for it!
I can say that I had some success to get one of the carriers here to look into the matter and I have the feeling that they’re really interested in solving this for me.
Simply switching your provider won’t work because then your texts might get to the intended receipient, but only as long as they switch providers (which happens very often in this competitive marketplace.) Then the whole nightmare starts again in on or the other way.
I hope you’ll find some of the solutions I have listed useful and you can text your overseas friend again soon.
Andreas
Posted by Andreas Lienemann on August 29th, 2007 at 6:56 pm.Hi Ewan, Andreas,
Thanks for the info!
I did in fact sign up to 3jam and seems to be working now (although had a few glitches at the begining). For now this will do!
Thanks again for the tip!
Dana
Posted by Dana on August 31st, 2007 at 7:28 pm.