It’s happening, it’s really happening. Carriers are on their way to discontinuing text-to-email services.
AT&T announced that on June 17, 2025, they will stop servicing text messages sent via their email gateway to mobile devices.
What is email-to-text messaging?
Shortly after SMS messaging was invented, a Finnish telecom began offering a way to send text messages to mobile devices via email using the magical cipher of phone#@MobileCarrierName(or code).com. This made it easier to type out the message on a keyboard — if you’ll remember, phones in 1993 only had numbers on the keypad associated with letters, making it a long laborious process to type out any length of messages…clicking on the 7 four times to type an S was tedious and frustrating.
Eventually more and more carriers started offering the service for free and email-to-text became a ‘thing’. This was also during more innocent times; with fewer SMS scammers and spammers. People could send messages to friends and family with no worries that it would be perceived as spam.
What’s happening with email-to-text now?
In the last 15 years, as business SMS has started to ramp up, so have the spammers. Not only can you send text messages to your friends and family via email, you can also send messages to customers, patients and vendors without leaving your email inbox…but so can the spammers.
The carriers are finally starting to open their eyes to the fact that since it’s a free service, businesses and spammers alike can use it without being detected. In 2023 Verizon starting offering an opt-out option for folks that don’t want to receive texts from an email address, since they are often traced back to spammers. But, with the recent announcement from AT&T, it wouldn’t surprise me if Verizon jumps on board.
T-Mobile hasn’t officially stopped the service, but in the last few years, consumers have been reporting that the service is not as reliable as it once was…sounds like a phase-out to me.
Why is this happening?
In short, spammers. They are the reason we can’t have anything nice.
Due to the rise in business SMS the carriers have had to take note of who’s sending messages on their networks. Rooting out the bad actors. To accomplish this they’ve had to implement company/message registrations and regulations. In the US, its 10dlc (10-digit long code) registration, Australia, England and Ireland are enforcing registration for companies using custom sender IDs, and several other countries have come up with their own ways of regulating who can send SMS and how many can be sent. Carriers are also taking note of how people have opted-in to receiving those messages. If they haven’t opted-in, they shouldn’t be receiving business texts.
Since AT&T, a mobile carrier, can’t monitor who’s sending email-to-text messages over their network, they’ve decided to finally block all of them by decommissioning the service all together. Slowly but surely all of the carriers will see that’s the only way forward if they want to be able to uphold the regulations they’ve set forward.
What’s this mean for me?
If you want to send messages without switching tabs away from your favorite email software, you can still do that. Red Oxygen has solutions that will allow you to send using Gmail or Outlook.
We’re actually surprised the carriers haven’t taken action on this sooner; that they were willing to give away all of those free texts that couldn’t be monitored as easily.
But nevertheless, Red Oxygen has been prepared with add-ins and add-ons for Gmail and Outlook for years. Send texts from your email interface and receive replies in your inbox. When the text appears on your recipient’s phone, it’s a phone number not a random email address. You can even get a phone number with your local area code, giving your customer local trustworthy vibes.
Though it’s not free, it’s still only pennies per SMS to make sure your message is delivered and you’re staying compliant with carriers. That’s much cheaper for your bottom line than a no-show.
Request a Demo of Email Messaging Solutions From Red Oxygen
Our messaging solutions are compatible with Office, Gmail, web browsers and application programming interfaces (APIs), allowing you to select what works for you.
Our SMS solutions make it easier to keep in touch with your clients and other professionals, send personalized texts and set up automated messages. Plus, we can help you stay compliant.
Are you interested in learning more about how Red Oxygen can simplify your business communications? Contact us or request a demo today.
