How to text to Alltel from Germany

[s1lviii]

Hi everybody,

I'm Silvia from Germany and as I have absolutely no clue how your mobile networks in america are working, I'm looking for help here.

So, here's the scenario: I have a friend in the US, from North Carolina, she uses Alltel as a mobile phone network and we text quite a lot. As I'm from Germany (using o2 as a mobile network) it might get expensive after a while (I haven't seen my cell invoice yet for this month ). So I thought about getting an Alltel Sim Card for my 2nd handy so I can text her for less money But it does not seem to be that easy ...

So basically the question: What is the cheapest and / or most comfortable option to text my friend in the U.S.? As I said, I would buy a SIM Card from an american mobile network so the price for a SMS is cheapter, but I just don't know where to look for what and how

So hopefully you can help me with that and give me some options to chose from

Best regards,
Silvia

[Quint101]

Unfortunately, Alltel doesn't use SIM cards. Also the major USA SIM cards (AT&T and T-Mobile USA) likely won't be viable solutions because international roaming is blocked on the prepaid SIM cards and you will have to sign enable international roaming on a monthly billed account. And on top of that, sending SMS from a foreign country can cost as much as $0.50 US Also, the other person is likely paying dearly for receiving

A cheaper solution is to send a SMS to the person's SMS email address. For Alltel phones, the SMS email address is 10-digit_phone_number@message.alltel.com (don't put the +1 infront of the number)... the person is billed out of the SMS allowance or $0.15 per message... and for you, the international SMS fees will go away since you are sending text messages to an email (I hope )

[s1lviii]

Hey, thank you very much for your answer!

Just one question: What does "the person is billed out of the SMS allowance" mean? Well I'll try to text her via this email you gave me, when she's awake - maybe she also knows smth about this

[dmapr]

Originally Posted by s1lviii

Hey, thank you very much for your answer!

Just one question: What does "the person is billed out of the SMS allowance" mean? Well I'll try to text her via this email you gave me, when she's awake - maybe she also knows smth about this

Most carriers in the US bill not only for outgoing, but also for incoming SMS and charge up to $.20 per message part sent or received. Because of that people who text are pushed into buying monthly allotments of messages, and not everyone buys unlimited. Once you exceed the monthly allotment, you're being billed for additional messages at a rate higher than effective package rate, albeit not as high as the pay per use rate you'd pay without any package. So just check with your friend to see how many messages a month she can send or receive with no extra charge.

Hope this helps.

[MrObvious]

Another option is to add him/her to MSN Messenger and put their phone number into that.

[s1lviii]

Is it really possible to write SMS over MSN without paying?! I have her on MSN but I never saw that function =)

[MrObvious]

Just put her phone number in the part where it says contact details. It works for me.