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Some of the networks used to offer email/SMTP to SMS for free, i.e. register your details and get a new email address which forwards any message via text.
The downside is that you're usually restricted to 10 per day and these can only be sent to your own phone.
For higher volumes and the ability to send to anywhere - the SMS spam favourite - then you need to find an independant gateway.
Suggest as a starting point searching Google for "email to sms", "sms gateway" etc to find the type of service you need.
In any case most will provide a number of access options, online credit-card top ups, reporting etc, as well as be much cheaper than your network provider.
I've previously written an app which received emails and forwarded them to a phone as SMS.
It was written in VB and used the comm control (I think) to dial out through a modem and setup a (very) dumb terminal session with an SMS gateway. The gateway did not require a password and the fee was collected from the telephone charges - I think it was premium rate but it took seconds to send a message so was not extortionate.
It was written for a guy who wanted to be kept up to date with important emails whilst away from his desk and so it had some filtering options (source address, subject line etc) and obviously it ignored any attachments. I think it was to help keep him a step ahead of his boss by knowing the latest developments even when he had been away from his desk for a bit.
