Tricky way for cheap/free international texting

[leaveluck2heaven]

Me and my SO figured this one out a little bit after I came here and it's made the distance a lot easier. I thought I'd share it with other international couples!

First of all, you'll both need Twitter accounts but if you don't already have one, they're free to get. Now set it up with your local cell phone. There are different Twitter codes for each country so you're always interacting with Twitter as local calls. (My boyfriend lives in America, so he texts to Twitter as 40404, but on my Ireland cell network, I'm texting them as 51210.) Now you can direct message your SO on Twitter by texting "d theirusername yourmessage"

It's a local text for you because you're sending it to your local Twitter number! Then Twitter processes it and texts it to them, but since it's coming from Twitter's number, not yours, it's a local text for them too! Local on both sides!

Me and my boyfriend text all the time using this method! Whether it's cheap or free depends on your plan, obviously. It's totally free for him, and for me it's free to receive his texts but costs me ten cents to send them. Of course, when I'm at home and can use my computer, I can also send them straight from Twitter.com which makes them free too (: Hope this trick can help out some other couples!

[13000km]

My boyfriend and I started tweeting like that since we met more than a year ago! I think I shared about it somewhere else on here. I feel like we have beaten our phone companies' system. (:

[Jonesonaboat]

Personally, we use Pingchat.
He has an iphone with some 500MB limit or something? And I have a Blackberry with an unlimited data plan and it's been amazing for us. Instant and really reliable (although my phone is slower at sending/recieving the messages), and we can also send pictures, videos and share our location. All free (depending on your data plan of course).

[Joyce:)]

i have an iphone, and my boyfriend is in america, so i can just text him with an app called textplus, and he can reply with normal texts because he has unlimited texts, and texplus provides you with an american number to text with, so we both end up texting for free <3

[Joyce:)]

and i really feel like texting made our relationship so much easier, and made it so much easier to cope with distance and lack of communication

[Prince_of_Light]

Brilliant idea. My gf and I used to text each others' phones with our email addresses. You just add the email as a contact and send a text to it. Then when the email address user gets it, your text should show up as phonenumber@wirelessprovider.com.

[London-FortCollins]

^^^ me and my so do this...except it's a bit tempermental internationally.

[jsymons]

Does anyone know any way to add countries not on their drop down list? My SO is from Poland but we weren't able to find it in the list. Otherwise does anyone else have any recommendations that don't require smartphones?

Cheers,
John

[Pixel]

i have an iphone, and my boyfriend is in america, so i can just text him with an app called textplus, and he can reply with normal texts because he has unlimited texts, and texplus provides you with an american number to text with, so we both end up texting for free <3

This is what we do! He uses textplus and I have unlimited texting!

[MimiD]

This is really cool . Im going to try it with him !!! thnx !!

[nickki]

My SO & I both have iphones. You can imessage on between iphones for free. It runs off data usage not text usage. There are several other apps we use to text text for free. Kik is one. There is also a iphone app called "Pair" that is really neat! Lets you "thumb kiss".

[redapple]

My SO & I both have iphones. You can imessage on between iphones for free. It runs off data usage not text usage.

Hi Nikki, just wondering if you could help me out. My SO is considering getting a new phone as he doesnt have a smart phone and were thinking that its might help make communication better if he gets one. Ive got an iphone but i think sometimes itl send text messages to other iphones instead of imessages? Have you had this problem? just want to avoid big bills!

[nickki]

Hi Nikki, just wondering if you could help me out. My SO is considering getting a new phone as he doesnt have a smart phone and were thinking that its might help make communication better if he gets one. Ive got an iphone but i think sometimes itl send text messages to other iphones instead of imessages? Have you had this problem? just want to avoid big bills!

If you have an iphone it would be a good idea for him to get one as well. So many free apps you can use for messaging! Iphone users can text on imessage for free as long as you are in an area with data..3g or wifi, if you dont have data or wifi it will try and send it as a SMS text (which could cost!). There is a way to turn off sending SMS messages during imessage chats. If I lose data it will try to send as a text, until I turned it off. I did not know I was getting charged .25 for those texts! lol

The app I mentioned called "Pair" is made just for those in an LDR. You can chat, send pics and videos, drawings, thumb kiss, etc. Its free too Kik messenger is a good one too.

[Kiyama]

An iphone might not be necessary. My boyfriend has an iphone and I have a samsung smartphone. We use whatsapp, which is the most amazing app in the world. It runs in the iphone, blackberries, android os... You can send texts over the internet for free. And not only texts but also pictures or voice messages. We love it. It makes communication so much easier (and cheap)

[xoxogaby]

Me and my SO usually use yahoo messenger to text
But sometimes we use Viber too, it's an app for free texting and also free phone calls but both of you need to download the app first (I own an iphone and he owns an android)