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Google / Gchat SMS - Data Plan or Text Message

I am going to be forced to be on a 250 texts per month plan for work soon. I'm looking for ways around this (since I'll definitely use more than that). One possible option I've found is to use Gchat, and their SMS/texting feature. You can send a message directly from Gchat to a cell phone. Will this count against my text plan? My data plan? Neither?

And if it is the data plan, can you ballpark how much data this will use? Thanks!

Comments

unknown

Using the Google Voice and the Google Talk apps will use data. I'm not sure how much data they use, but if you plan to use it extensively, I would reccomend moving to the unlimited data plan. It is already quite difficult to keep Android phones under the 150MB limit for the $15 plan, and adding in daily usage of Google Voice for texting (which would require you to leave 3G data on, allowing other programs to run updates, check for new information, etc.) would almost certainly put you over that limit.

rfreeman

I am unfamiliar with Google Talk or Google Voice. What I was thinking about doing is logging into my Gmail account and simply using the basic Gchat. They allow you to text your IMs to a cell phone. Is this going to be different than that answer you just provided?

unknown

If you log in to Gmail through your computer and use Gchat to send texts, that has nothing to do with your cell plan. The texts will come "from" your Gmail address, or your Google Voice number if you have one. If you want to send texts via Google with your phone, you'll need to use one of their apps, either Google Talk or Google Voice, the mobile version of the Gmail site doesn't have the chat function.

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