XPost: comp.mobile.android, comp.mobile.ipad   
   From: arlen@arlen.com   
      
   How to Send and Receive Text Messages Without a Phone Plan or SIM Card   
      
   The question originally came up just now in another form on the Android   
   newsgroup asking how to send/receive MMS without having a data plan:   
   o Unable to open MMS messages   
      
      
   Since I've had no problem setting up my iPads to act exactly like phones   
   I took a stab at the problem set.   
      
   In googling, I found this seemingly nice tutorial, which I share with you:   
   o How to Send & Receive Text Messages Without a Phone Plan or SIM Card   
      
      
   I only skimmed the tutorial (since I had turned all my tablets into phones   
   long ago), but it seems to use a similar method to what I used.   
      
   Bear in mind, Hangouts is deemed to die, so, get it while you can if you   
   use Hangouts in addition to Google Voice.   
      
      
   With my Hangouts + Google Voice + free T-Mobile SIM card,   
   all my tablets have the following "phone-like" features:   
   1. Free USA local phone number (that anyone can call from anywhere)   
   2. Free USA phone calls (to and from POTS lines and/or Mobile lines)   
   3. Free SMS texts (I didn't check if it works internationally, probably not)   
      
   Note my free T-Mobile SIM only allows 200MB/month, which turns out to be   
   plenty for both mapping (using offline maps, of course) or phone calls.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)