genki2-ga:
I am posting this as the Answer, I am sorry that the Answer is not
exactly great news, but fortunately as I mention below, these
international SMS gateway agreements are constantly developing, so you
may soon be able to send SMS to anyone, anywhere in the world.
The original information follows:
----------------------
International text messaging requires that SMS gateways and
partnerships exist between the network operators involved. Within
Korea, Japan, and the UK, there are gateway agreements already in
place that allow customers on any of the carriers to send a message to
any other phone on any of the networks within the country. As well,
given that operators such as Orange and Vodafone have networks in many
countries around the world, these gateway agreements often span
borders.
The problem in trying to answer your question is that the North
American cell phone industry is relatively independent from the rest
of the world. With the exception of T-Mobile, the other carriers
basically operate primarily within North America. There are some
gateway agreements in place, noteably between the American and
Canadian wireless carriers. However, international gateway agreements
are limited.
AT&T Wireless has an international gateway agreement that allows AT&T
Wireless customers to send and receive SMS messages with users in many
other countries. Unfortunately, neither Korea nor Japan are on the
list of countries:
http://forums.attwireless.com/attws/board/message?board.id=hottopics&message.id=31
http://www.attwireless.com/business/features/communication/inttextmessaging.jhtml
I believe that T-Mobile allows international text messaging to other
T-Mobile users in Europe, as long as the recipient has a 10-digit
phone number. However, with the exception of the UK, they do not have
presence in the countries you are interested in.
Gateway agreements are constantly being reworked and negotiated, so
keep an eye out for announcements from the major US carriers.
An alternative that I will NOT recommend is to use a web-based SMS
gateway service such as http://www.smsto.net/international-sms.htm .
The reason I do not recommend this is because it is not as easy to use
as SMS, and it is usually more expensive. It also requires your
friends to use the same (or similar) service in order to reach you.
------------------------
Regards,
aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher
------------------------
Search Strategy:
SMS gateway international
international SMS |