13 Oct, 2012 10:54 PM

Now send SMS via Gmail - Almost free

Google SMS feature which was launched for select countries couple of years back is now extended to Indian users as well. The facility is now available to 52 countries across Asia, Africa and North America.

In the GMail chat panel,you have to click on the ‘down’ arrow next to the Email button and you will see an option that allows you to send an SMS. Click on that, type the mobile number of the contact and send. The receiver can send replies that will be received in the chat window. The conversations will be stored in the chat history also.

Even tough the company brands it as free SMS, it is limited to 50 free credits initially that can be used to send 50 SMSs. Beyond that you have to earn credits. Credits are earned while you reply to the SMSs. Each reply will earn 5 SMS credit points. Google suggests that you send messages to your mobile and then send replies from your mobile for earning SMS credits at 5 SMS per reply. Also when your SMS credit is zero, one credit will be added after 24 hours.

The service is now limited to eight mobile service operators - Aircel, Idea, Loop Mobile, MTS, Reliance, Tata DoCoMo, Tata indicom and Vodafone (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal & Andaman and Nicobar, Assam, North East).

If you want to block SMSs via this service from a particular contact, you can just reply to the message with BLOCK’. You have the option of sending ‘UNBLOCK’ later, if you have a change of heart. And if you don’t want the service altogether, that is you don’t want people to send you SMS’s from GChat, you can text ‘STOP’ to +918082801060. To reactivate send SMS ‘START’ to the same number.

The advantage is that the app is integrated with the mail service. Otherwise other free services are preferable - such as way2sms.com