Redrock
Redrock has two services available: a simple free Web-to-SMS gateway and a fully featured pay-for-service system. The front page has a rather large Shockwave file that does not seem to display under Netscape, and the main page displays incorrectly (the menu frame is missing). There did not seem to be any problems using Internet Explorer.
On the business side, Redrock offers a range of professional services under the "messagenet" brand (www.messagenet .com.au), including Web-to-SMS, e-mail-to-SMS, as well as direct TCP/IP-to-SMS and dialup-to-SMS. Other services include System and Web site monitoring via SMS and Windows-based SMS.
Pay-as-you go pricing ranges from AU$27.50 for two users and 75 messages, to AU$297 for five users and 1200 messages. Accounts range from the Bronze at AU$33 per month for 150 messages (with extra messages at 44 cents each); the Silver is AU$110 per month with 500 messages (additional messages are 33 cents each); and the Gold account costs AU$495 per month and includes 1800 messages. If you manage to go over that limit, extra messages will cost you 22 cents each.
Redrock can also offer a variety of tailored solutions that can be hosted by the customer, through Redrock's WAP portal or delivered on Link Telecommunications two-way paging network. Solutions developed to date include job despatch applications, corporate news services and mobile e-mail.
Freesms
As the intro screen states, this site is simple and free. FreeSMS allows you to send SMS messages to Australian mobile phones with no cost to the sender or the recipient. It's free because the site sponsors pay the cost through ads appended to the end of the message.
The site is uncluttered and generally fast to load (as there are almost no images). There is one minor limitation, and that is that you can only send 20 messages per day. At one stage we found the site a little slow to connect to, and then the following message popped up: "Sorry too many users are connected. The Web server is busy; please try to connect again later..."
This site is an excellent place to send free SMS messages, especially when more bandwidth is made available.
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