For years, many businesses and IT departments have relied on email to text services to deliver critical alerts, reminders, or automated messages. Email to text has offered a quick & simple way to send text messages to a recipient’s phone number using an email client.
The method was straightforward: send an email to a mobile carrier’s SMS gateway address (e.g., 1234567890@vtext.com for Verizon) and the recipient’s carrier would convert that email into an SMS and deliver it. No need for additional infrastructure. It just worked.
Yeah. That’s right. Worked.
The email to text and text to email gateway services provided by major carriers are being gradually shut down. Sprint was one of the first to pull the plug back in early 2022. Boost Mobile soon followed, and by the end of 2024, T-Mobile’s email to text address had become unreliable, eventually going completely offline in December.
Verizon’s vtext.com email to text address is still technically available, but the experience is let’s say… not particularly the greatest: delivery problems are common when sending text messages, new users can no longer sign up, and Verizon itself recommends businesses stop relying on the service.
AT&T has now officially announced their email to text shutdown date: June 17, 2025. After that, their email to text service will no longer be available.
That means if your organization still uses carrier-based email to text for automated text messages – whether through monitoring software, booking systems, healthcare alerts, or customer service platforms – you’re likely to face disruptions.
With the end of email to text from carriers, businesses are left with two main replacement options:
Both can take over where email to text has left off, but they differ significantly in how they work and what they offer in terms of cost, security, reliability, and data control.
Online SMS gateways are hosted services that let you send text messages over the internet. You connect your systems to the provider’s platform (usually via API or a web interface), and they handle the SMS delivery, helping you effectively reach various recipients like clients or employees.
Online SMS gateways are easy to get started with. There’s no hardware to install or manage, and many platforms offer free trials or pay-as-you-go pricing. No upfront investment is required, which makes them appealing for smaller companies or teams.
First of all, you pay for every message sent. That cost adds up quickly, especially for organizations that send hundreds or thousands of SMS alerts every month. If your internet goes down, or if the provider’s platform has an outage, your messages don’t get delivered.
There’s also the matter of data privacy and security. Since all your messages are sent through someone else’s infrastructure, your data is stored on external servers. That can be a problem for industries with strict compliance requirements like healthcare, finance or government.
Most online SMS services also offer only basic functionality. Advanced features like automation, integration with internal systems, or custom logic can require additional payment, can be limited or not available at all.
The second option is to switch to a hardware SMS gateway, such as SMSEagle.
This is a physical device that you install locally. It uses a standard SIM card (like a mobile phone) to send and receive SMS messages directly through the mobile network; without relying on internet access, third party services and/or third-party servers to send text messages.
You send an email to the device. It automatically converts that message into a text message and sends it out using the SIM card directly to the recipient’s phone, just like you’d send email to text via your phone.
Because the SMSEagle is installed on-site and runs within your local network, all data stays under your control. Nothing is transmitted to external servers, and no messages are stored outside your organization. This makes it ideal for sectors with data protection policies, like public administration, law enforcement, healthcare and finance.
It also keeps working during internet outages or cloud service failures — because it doesn’t depend on either.
Hardware SMS gateway like SMSEagle is a one-time purchase. You buy the device, insert a SIM card, and you’re good to go. No subscriptions. No per-message fees. Just your regular mobile plan (for example a plan with free text messages)
That makes it a cost-effective choice in the long run — especially for organizations sending large volumes of SMS notifications, system alerts, or reminders.
Setting up and using a hardware SMS gateway involves a straightforward process: purchase the device, insert a SIM card, configure the settings, and start sending messages, which usually takes no more than 15 minutes.
SMSEagle is more than just a replacement; it’s a full-featured SMS communication platform that gives you total control over your text-messages and text-based workflows with more than 40 features.
It supports various message types, including standard SMS, flash SMS, binary SMS, MMS messages and email. In addition to text messaging, SMSEagle supports voice messaging through text-to-speech conversion and playback of pre-recorded WAV files.
Scheduling, periodic messaging and customizable autoreplies enhance automation and reliability. Users can send messages to individuals or groups, based on specific criteria.
SMSEagle also includes monitoring and alerting tools for services like web servers, mail servers, SNMP devices, and environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity thanks to its support of external accessories.
It supports integration with systems via HTTP/HTTPS APIs, as well as email-to-SMS, SMS-to-email and MQTT.
The platform features a multilingual web interface and runs on a secure Linux system with Apache2 and PostgreSQL, offering a reliable, scalable solution for critical messaging needs.
Online SMS services are a perfect fit if you need to start really fast, and have only simple communications needs. But it comes with limitations: recurring fees, dependence on internet access, lower privacy, and fewer integration options.
A hardware SMS gateway like SMSEagle offers better reliability, full ownership of your messaging system, is more cost-effective and offers better privacy control.
It may be a smarter choice for organizations where SMS messages are mission-critical, and where uptime, security, and data control actually matter.
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SMSEagle is a hardware & software solution that guarantees a swift delivery of your messages to designated recipients, whether it’s for notifications, alerts, or important updates.
If your systems still rely on email to text via mobile carrier gateways, now’s the time to take action.
As the June 17 shutdown date from AT&T approaches – and with other carriers having already limited or disabled their email to SMS services – it’s clear that this method is no longer a safe option for business communication.
To keep your messaging running smoothly, you have to switch to a SMS gateway solution. Your decision to choose a cloud service or a hardware SMS device depends on your needs, but for critical, secure, and reliable text delivery, as well as data control and long-term cost effectiveness, it may be good to consider SMSEagle hardware SMS gateway.
An SMS address is an email-like format (e.g., 1234567890@vtext.com) used to send a text message via email through a mobile carrier’s gateway. This method depends on the recipient’s carrier and is being phased out or limited by many providers. SMSEagle doesn’t rely on this — it sends SMS directly using SIM cards.
It’s the mobile network the recipient uses (like T-Mobile, Vodafone, or Orange). If you send texts through email-to-SMS gateways, you need to know the carrier to format the address correctly. With SMSEagle, you don’t need the carrier info — just the phone number.
Two-way messaging means the recipient can reply to your SMS and their response comes back to your system. SMSEagle fully supports this using SIM cards. Just keep in mind that if you use a custom alphanumeric sender ID, replies won’t work — because it’s not a real number.
SMSEagle can automatically forward incoming SMS messages to email. You set this up in the SMS to Email section. You can use your own SMTP server or let SMSEagle send the messages directly using its built-in client.
Send an email to the SMSEagle’s email address (set in the device). It will convert the message into an SMS and deliver it via SIM — no carrier gateway needed. Make sure you whitelist the sender’s email in the settings.
A hardware SMS gateway (like SMSEagle) is a physical device with SIM cards that sends and receives SMS directly through mobile networks. It doesn’t rely on external APIs or internet-based services.
Benefits include:
No. SMS is sent via SIM cards and mobile networks. You only need internet access for using features like email-to-SMS, web interface access, API communication, or firmware updates.
That depends on the model:
Only the MHD-8100-4G model supports 8 modems/SIMs — great for high-volume use, load balancing, or using multiple mobile networks.
That depends on the model:
Only the MHD-8100-4G model supports 8 modems/SIMs — great for high-volume use, load balancing, or using multiple mobile networks.
Yes. You can schedule SMS messages from the web interface or via the API. Useful for timed alerts, reminders, or planned communication.
Yes. It runs on your local network, so no data leaves your infrastructure. You can set up HTTPS, restrict access by IP, assign user roles, and control device access with a firewall or VPN.
Yes. SMSEagle supports integration with tools like Zabbix, PRTG, Nagios, LibreNMS, and others. You can also integrate with your own apps using email triggers, the API, SNMP, or webhooks.
At SMSEagle, we deliver reliable SMS gateways businesses depend on. We know true trust demands uncompromising information security. That’s why we’re proud to announce our ISO 27001 certification, the globally recognized standard for Information Security Management Systems (ISMS).
We’d like to announce that SMSEagle software version 6.14 is now available. This update brings several useful improvements, along with important fixes that make sure your device works even better.
Automated SMS notifications help send fast and clear updates—no cloud platform or constant internet required. As a manufacturer of hardware SMS gateways, we provide reliable tools that help streamline communication securely and cost-effectively.
