"texting 101" help needed

[Lylej2k]

Originally Posted by marklyn

I'm fairly new to texting and have discovered the benefits of texting to friends and family. I'm a little confused about 'how' to text to my friends who are on different carriers (other than sprint) for example.
It doesn't appear that I can always text only to a phone number in all cases, or am I wrong?
For example, for me receive a text from an email account, it has to be to "my_number@sprintmessaging.com" instead of just my phone number but am I correct in assuming that if someone is texting me from their mobile phone they would then just use my phone number?

I'd appreciate a primer on texting formats to carriers from an email account or from my cell phone, when to use just the phone number and when more is needed.

Ok, let the texting lesson begin. I've had to teach this to my parents so I'm sure I can get ya going.

You can text anyone on any carrier, all you need is their number, including the area code (for me on verizon anyway). You can send text to their email, instead of entering a phone number simply use an email address "Johnsmith@somecompany.com" for example.

Anyone can text you from their phone, all they need is your number. I believe you are correct about sending a text from an email by using "Yournumber@sprintmessaging.com" but I'm not positive on that one as i do not text anyone from a computer via email.

If you have an AIM account and you set up mobile forwarding, any IM your friends send while you have it activated will be sent to your phone in the form of a text.

If i missed anything or you have any further questions, ask away.