One rather clever development from BT that you may not be aware of .. Yes, I said BT, the landline provider that provide a lot of the UK’s standard phones. How do they warrant a story on CoolSmartPhone ? Well, you can now send a text message to any “normal” landline phone.
“Oi”, I hear you cry, “your losing the plot. Not everyone has one of those flashy new BT phones where you can send / receive text messages”
… You don’t need to. Sure, it helps – the new phones let you send messages from a landline number (and they’re quite cheap too)… they even have polyphonic ringtones and colour screens as BT struggle to compete with their mobile competitors – however anyone with any phone can now receive a text.
How is it done? Well, it’s real easy. Go on, pick up your Smartphone now and send a message to your own home phone number. Type a proper message in, like “Hello, I will be home in 5 minutes, get the dinner sorted love” 😉 Within seconds your home phone rings and the familiar “1571” BT Answer lady will READ OUT your text message along with the number it came from. If no-one answers then BT will keep it as a standard voice-message and will inform you with the usual two-tone dial-tone.
Note – Bluesmudge has emailed in to say NTL customers can get this too! Also, hawklord2112 has mailed in to say that Telewest lines can receive these messages too.