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The Canadian mobile marketplace has been a pretty boring and outdated scene for a long time. Not only are the average monthly plans among the most expensive in the world, but the cellular networks that we rely upon are outdated and unreliable. Until recently, Rogers was the only major Canadian company to have a 3G network while Telus and bell were lagging behind with older technology. What this meant was that Rogers was the only company that could offer 3G smart phones and could charge outrageous prices for the phones because they had zero competition. Things were looking pretty bleak for the past couple years until Telus and Bell announced that they were working together to launch a brand new 3G network that was among the most technically advanced in the world!

3G for all

Bell and Telus launched their brand new 3G networks on November 4, 2009 and November 5, 2009 respectively. This was very exciting because it meant that Bell and Telus could finally offer new and more exciting smart phones to their customers who had been stuck with older and out of date phones. It was also exciting to see the pricing plans they would unveil as they would now be competing directly with Rogers in the smart phone marketplace.

The iPhone

In Canada, Rogers was the only company to sell the iPhone because they were the only 3G carrier and hence was the exclusive iPhone carrier by default. Since Rogers knew that they were the only game in town for the iPhone they decided to charge ridiculous prices for their iPhone plans ($68/$83 per month). Many Canadians took offense to the outrageous price points but in the end the iPhone still became the most popular phone in Canadian history. I’m sure that Bell and Telus took great satisfaction when they had the chance to finally launch the iPhone on their new 3G network. I was watching intently to see if Bell and Telus would undercut Rogers and make their iPhone an affordable choice. They did not disappoint and started offering the iPhone on monthly contracts for only $50! (Take that Rogers). Needless to say, I’m sure there are many upset Rogers customers at the moment.

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I don’t have a cell phone, but I can still send out text messages as much as I want. I’m sure many of you have already discovered this but you can send free text messages from your computer. Although it is important to note that the recipient of the message may be charged depending on their cell phone plan.

There are two different ways to do this:

1. Each mobile phone company has a website set up so you can send text messages to their customers.

• Rogers
• Fido
• Telus
• Bell Mobility
• Koodo

If you don’t know what carrier a person is with then you can try a site like YouText.com that works for all Canadian mobile carriers.

2. You can also send a text message directly from an email by using a 10 digit phone number and the extensions listed below as the email address to send to.

• Rogers: (10-digit phone number)@pcs.rogers.com
• Fido: (10-digit phone number)@fido.ca
• Telus: (10-digit phone number)@msg.telus.com
• Bell: (10-digit phone number)@txt.bell.ca
• Koodo: (10-digit phone number)@msg.koodomobile.com
• Sasktel: (10-digit phone number)@sms.sasktel.com
• Solo: (10-digit phone number)@txt.bell.ca
• MTS: (10-digit phone number)@text.mtsmobility.com
• Virgin: (10-digit phone number)@vmobile.ca

So if the person you wish to text has the number of 613-555-7252 and is on a Bell cell phone then you would send an email to: 6135557252@txt.bell.ca

If you would like to send free text messages to someone outside of Canada then you should check out other websites that offer this service for many popular carriers around the world. See some example sites listed below.

• http://www.onlinetextmessage.com/
• http://www.gizmosms.com/

If you would like to add any mobile carriers to the list please leave a comment. Also let me know if you encounter any problems while trying to send a text message as I have not personally tried out all of the carriers listed above.