Workaround for free international texting?

[ahoogst]

My girlfriend is in Europe this summer where she'll have a GSM dumb-phone and not be able to do much more than make calls and text. However, international texting rates are ridiculous as you all know and I've been trying to think of ways for her to text for free (I'd be fine with my TB). My latest plan was to use Twitter to send @messages to each other. That way she only gets charged the local texting rate but I'll get a notification when she @messages me. However, Twitter does not have a 2 way short code for texting for her country, nor does it have a long-form code.

I've googled around a bunch in the last 2 weeks, but everyone seems to say that 2 smartphones are the only way to get around this. Anyone else have experience with this situation or have any other ideas for me to try?

 

[JEcht]

How dumb is the phone? Will she have a data plan on the dumb phone? I would say look for an IM like AIM. If the phone has data plan.

If you have a spare smartphone she could use it at wifi hotspots in europe.

 

[jcnyc]

j

 

[jcnyc]

Ya not much you can do here besides pay up the ass for texting. That's if she can even text internationally with her phone. I'm surprised she can't even get a crappy android smartphone. Sadly, there's nothing out there that doesn't use data I'm afraid. Twitter, facebook, gchat, etc. all use data.

 

[Neera]

Can't comment about texting, but I do believe an IM client would be more beneficial.

Now for making calls I strongly recommend Google Voice. My parents are in Germany and calls through Google Voice only cost me $0.02 a minute.

 

[ahoogst]

She's in Europe already and picking up a phone tomorrow. Her plan is to just use prepaid cards I think. In that case she may not even be able to text right? Even if she can I don't believe she'll want a data plan, which means no IM client etc. Are there any other text routing services that could work like the Twitter method I thought of?