Sending/Receiving SMS to/from Philippines

[tomasz]

One girl from blossoms.com wants to interact with me through sms. I looked through the forum but couldn't find any information.

Does anyone have experience with sending (from Canada or USA) to philippines, or vice versa and most important what is the cost of doing so.



Thomas

[ladislav]

This is what you need to do:

1) Go to Ebay and do a search on "OFW Smart SIM pack activated". Find a US seller and buy the card.
2) Make sure that you have a Tri-band phone. If you do not have one go on ebay and get a cheap China phone as long as its tri-band. Some cost as little as 23 dollars. Pop the new SIM into your phone and let it lock into the local US network. Sometimes you need to do a manual set up.
3) Load your Skype account- I have automatic refill- it covers calls and SMS's. Add the girl's number to Skype contacts. From Skype, you will be able to send text messages to her at 6c a message. In SMS settings on Skype, specify which number you want to display on your SMS's going to her. Just follow the prompts. They will send you a code to make sure you are human.
4) Sign up at www.aryty.com. Then, go to my "account" and add some credit cards to it. Add your SIM number and the gir's SIM number to the phone book. Now you can reload/top up her account and yours with 3-4 dollar loads, but you will be texting her from Skype or ipipi.com ( a bit more expensive) and she will be answering from her phone. It will cost her 1-2c per text. No matter where in the world you are. Triband phones work everywhere except Japan and Korea.

Make sure you reload/top up at least once in 3 weeks/a month to keep the load active. Philippine numbers will usually become inactive after 6 months of non use.

[Lucid-Dreams]

One girl from blossoms.com wants to interact with me through sms. I looked through the forum but couldn't find any information.

Does anyone have experience with sending (from Canada or USA) to philippines, or vice versa and most important what is the cost of doing so.


Thomas

I was actually researching this about a month ago.

To send free SMS, check out:

http://www.chikka.com/
http://textoo.in/

I also read that there was a big ad campaign promoting WeChat in the Philippines, which is an alternative to WhatsApp. I'm assuming since the push of the ad campaign that a sufficient number of Filipinos have smart phones? If she has one, then both of you can download one of those apps and "text" for free! Check out the article with the video/commercial here:

http://ph.news.yahoo.com/wechat-sees-hu ... 13841.html

Skype too. Free texting between skype users and there are both Desktop and mobile apps.

What's more, Ladislav's post above is super-slick!