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PHILIPPINES, JULY 2011 — Google has partnered with the Philippines’ largest mobile networks to offer free SMS from its email service, Gmail. The country has 74 million mobile phones, according to TNS.
The SMS with Gmail service is now available to Smart, Globe and Sun subscribers. The service is also currently available in 23 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, as well as through all operators in the United States. The service is also available in Asia through Indonesia’s Indosat and Telkomsel.
The service works through Gmail’s Chat functionality. Gmail users can enable the service by going to Settings, selecting the Labs option and selecting Enable.
The initial message quota is 50 messages. Every SMS message sent through Chat that receives a reply (paid for by sender) adds five message credits to the quota, up to a maximum of 50 messages. To prevent abuse, Gmail blocks users who send an excessive number of SMS from Gmail without getting any responses.
