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Wireless Text Messaging w/o A Phone?

Posted by Cliff on from the take-my-cell-phone...please! dept.

beroul asks: "I don't want a mobile phone (I'd never use it for voice), but I'd like to be able to send and receive text messages using some sort of small, inexpensive wireless device. Does anyone know of such a thing? I've looked for a send-and-receive pager, but they seem to have vanished as everyone opts for mobile phones. I live in the UK, so I'm looking for something that will work here. Being able to send SMS messages to people who have mobile phones would be a plus."

4 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. Personally by dubl-u · · Score: 2

    I used a SkyTel pager for a few years. The technology was fine, but the customer service sucked so hard that you could just call their 800 number, put the phone handset in a bell jar, and create a laboratory-grade vacuum in under a minute. I may have received a bill that was correct once, but if so, it was by accident.

    I eventually just got a PCS cellphone, and pretty much ignore the cellphone part. It's cheaper and it seems to work just as well.

    I also hear good things about the blackberry but I haven't had a chance to try it myself yet.

  2. Re:Blackberry by Anonymous+Cowdog · · Score: 2

    The Motorola pagers have much better in-building penetration than the Blackberry devices. My colleagues and I with our Motorola 2-way pagers can be sending email back and forth inside a conference hall, or basically anywhere, while RIM users sitting next to us are left in the dark. I've seen this both at a conference in a hotel, and in our office.

  3. Wireless w/o a phone by Zal42 · · Score: 2

    I dunno how this applies to Europe -- probably not at all, but - A few weeks back, I purchased a Glenayre messaging pager, in leiu of a cellphone (I _hate_ cellphones, especially the ones I have to carry myself). This provides send/recieve internet email, voicemail, and your usual paging functions, and the service provided by SkyTel even lets me send a text message to a regular telephone (where a text-to-speech system reads it to whomever answers).

    In short, it meets all my comm needs w/o having to be a telephone. Oh, and it can also act as a modem of sorts for my Palm :)

  4. Blackberry by jcausey · · Score: 3

    The Blackberry is awesome! I had mine for a year and a half (until I gave in to my friends and got a Palm VII). Check out either one -- I still prefer the blackberry, but since most everyone else I work and interact with either has a Palm or Handspring, I can't go back. gl -- John