Anything 100% free & good for SMS via apps for Desktop PC & Android too ??
azrobert:
You can use the Hangouts dialer to make GV calls over WiFi for free. I thought Hangouts can also send SMS over Wifi, but I can't get it to work.
vtsnaab:
NOooooo Thank You on the hangouts thingies for me !!
'Tis other stuff I seek - preferably NON-google stuff, like I tried to 'splain in what I added to the OP.
Desktop SMS seems to be something of a mystery other than what I described;
Android SMS -minus- a paid cellular carrier seems to have some apps like Whatsapp & TextPlus, but I'd love to hear about any other non-google ways to do this from anyone who is doing it, please ??
Thanks.
Taoman:
I recently ported an old landline number to voip.ms. It is rarely used and my total cost counting monthly charge, communications charges, and CNAM lookups averages $1.00/month. Great price for what you get along with it.
I have recently been using the voip.ms SMS Message Center. It sends and receives regular text messages (no MMS) currently at no charge. You can receive text messages in the SMS Message Center and/or via email. So far it has worked flawlessly. Sending and receiving texts is almost instantaneous. It's nice typing an SMS on a computer keyboard and viewing an SMS on a computer screen.
Another bonus is that the voip.ms DID gives you a direct SIP URI address. All SIP URI calls (except with Virtual numbers) are free. This allows you to forward a free DID you might have to your voip.ms account directly via SIP URI at no charge and completely bypass (sometimes problematic) iNum. In my view, that capability alone makes having a voip.ms DID worth the price of admission.
Yes, you can do the same thing with a free Callcentric account (I have one). But Callcentric is 3000 miles away from me and latency matters. Voip.ms, on the other hand, has POP/SIP servers geographically dispersed around North America. But I digress...
Bottom line is I like and use the VoIP.ms SMS Message Center and incoming/outgoing texts are currently free although you would need to have a VoIP.ms DID. But again, you can get that for a buck a month.
Con: minimum credit deposit is $25 although they offer refunds if you aren't a happy camper using their service
vtsnaab:
Hi Taoman and thanks.
I have 2 GV numbers and a couple of free Callcentric DIDs too - but CC does not have any SMS functions - as shown here from their FAQ:
Quote
Does Callcentric support SMS?
At this time we do not support SMS. There are multiple reasons for this, the main one being the difficulty in providing uniform support for SMS across all of the carriers that we use. You may check back with us in the future to see if we will be adding SMS support.
When all the furor erupted over the whole GV thing I also got an account with VoIP.ms but did not get a DID with them.
Right now I am not in any shape to be adding any new monthly expenses at all - not even $1/month.
Perhaps there are not any good & totally free ways (other than the hangouts & app) to use SMS that anyone here is using after all ??
corporate_gadfly:
Quote from: vtsnaab on January 31, 2015, 03:19:58 pm
Perhaps there are not any good & totally free ways to use SMS that anyone here is using after all ??
You discounted the hangouts apps right off the bat.
I don't have a stake in the outcome of your choices, but I can't help it but to mention that since you already have 2 GV numbers, hangouts app with data over WiFi/3G/LTE would seem like the free solution that you are looking for.
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