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Cricket and prepaid phones: email to text not working for alarms

Cricket email to text is not working because Cricket, a US brand, rides on AT&T's network. Its addresses reportedly stopped with AT&T's on June 17, 2025. Canadian prepaid and flanker brands work the same way: Fido and Chatr ride on Rogers. Change one address to your Welco address, and your crew's phones get alarm texts again, whatever the brand.

Get my alarm texts working againBook a demo

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing

  • No carrier question for your crew
  • One address reaches every phone
  • No per-user fees

Replaces email-to-text from

  • Cricket & prepaid
  • AT&T
  • T-Mobile
  • Verizon

Published:

Crew panel emails 5195550146@fido.ca; the Fido gateway replies 250 OK but drops it, so no text arrives. The same alert sent to crew-alarms@welco.ai goes through Welco to the phone. The email reaches Welco and the phone shows: “Welco: [Crew Yard] Generator FAIL alarm at 11:48 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Animation: the old carrier address 5195550146@fido.ca is replaced with the Welco address crew-alarms@welco.ai, and alerts arrive again.
  • In Canada, Rogers and its own brands, Fido and Chatr, reportedly lost email-to-text around June 2023. Rogers posted no notice we could find.
  • Public Mobile runs on Telus, and its users reported msg.telus.com still working in 2025.
  • In the US, Cricket's sms.cricketwireless.net reportedly ended with AT&T's on June 17, 2025, per NVRtxt.
  • US Verizon-network brands use Verizon's vtext.com gateway, and Metro used T-Mobile's tmomail.net.

How a carrier switch quietly breaks an alarm

A gateway address ties a person to a carrier. Welco ties them to the number they carry.

A list of prepaid gateway addresses

  • Each phone needs its own carrier address, and someone has to know the carrier.
  • Say a crew member ports their number from Fido to Koodo for a cheaper plan. Their old address stops working, and nobody tells the alarm system.
  • A dead gateway address fails without a bounce or a warning.

One Welco address in the system

  • Welco texts the phone number itself. The carrier behind it can change as often as it likes, and the alarm still arrives.
  • Each person joins from an invite with the phone they carry at night.
  • A delivery report flags a phone whose prepaid service has lapsed.

Why the network matters more than the brand

A prepaid or flanker brand usually runs on a big network. In Canada, Fido and Chatr belong to Rogers, Virgin Plus and Lucky Mobile to Bell, and Koodo and Public Mobile to Telus. Freedom Mobile belongs to Vidéotron. That is how prepaid phones got caught in the shutdown of carrier email-to-text gateways.

Users reported Rogers and its own brands losing email-to-text together around June 2023. In the US, AT&T's own email-to-text notice set June 17, 2025, and reports put Cricket in the same change.

Which gateway each prepaid brand used

Use this to see which alarms on your list are at risk. Where our sources say nothing about a brand's gateway, we mark it not confirmed rather than guess.

Prepaid and flanker brand gateways in Canada and the US, read October 2026

Fido and Chatr (Canada)

Network
Rogers
Gateway domain
fido.ca for Fido
Status, October 2026
Stopped around June 2023 (reported)

Public Mobile (Canada)

Network
Telus
Gateway domain
msg.telus.com
Status, October 2026
Working (reported, 2025)

Koodo (Canada)

Network
Telus
Gateway domain
Not in our sources
Status, October 2026
Not confirmed. Test before you rely on it

Virgin Plus, Lucky Mobile (Canada)

Network
Bell
Gateway domain
Not in our sources
Status, October 2026
Not confirmed. Bell's own gateway ended December 31, 2025

Freedom Mobile (Canada)

Network
Vidéotron
Gateway domain
Not in our sources
Status, October 2026
Not confirmed. Test before you rely on it

Cricket Wireless (US)

Network
AT&T
Gateway domain
sms.cricketwireless.net
Status, October 2026
Ended June 17, 2025 (reported)

Metro by T-Mobile (US)

Network
T-Mobile
Gateway domain
tmomail.net
Status, October 2026
Stopped around December 2024 (reported)

Visible, Straight Talk (US)

Network
Verizon
Gateway domain
vtext.com
Status, October 2026
Closing, complete by March 31, 2027

Sources: D2L community: text to SMS not working for Rogers-owned carriers (read Oct 6, 2026); Public Mobile community: SMS notification via msg.telus.com (read Oct 6, 2026); Bell: Text via Email end-of-life FAQ (read Oct 6, 2026); NVRtxt: email-to-text shutdown (read Oct 5, 2026); Verizon support: vtext and vzwpix shutdown (read Oct 5, 2026); SigSpan: T-Mobile email-to-text gateway (read Oct 5, 2026)

Is a prepaid phone on my alarm list affected?

  1. 1.Does any system email an address ending in @fido.ca, @pcs.rogers.com or @sms.cricketwireless.net?
  2. 2.Is anyone on call using Chatr, Koodo, Lucky Mobile, Freedom or another prepaid brand, reached by an email address?
  3. 3.Has anyone on the list ported their number to a new carrier since their alarm address was set up?

Answer the 3 questions to see your result.

Move prepaid phones to Welco in 15 minutes

You won't need to ask anyone which carrier they're on. Each person joins with the cellphone number they already carry. For a site with many panels, follow the alarm switch checklist.

  1. List who needs alarms at night

    Write down each person on call and an email address for their invite. Skip the carrier question entirely.

  2. Sign up and verify your business

    Create your Welco account with your work email, book the intro call and finish the business check. Sending starts once it's approved.

  3. Invite your crew and wait for each YES

    Each person joins from the invite with the phone they carry at night, then replies YES to one confirmation text. Anyone who doesn't reply won't get alarms, so follow up the same day.

  4. Replace the prepaid addresses with one Welco address

    Delete every carrier address from the system and put in your Welco address once. It can reach several phones per alarm.

  5. Send a test and read the report

    Trigger a test alarm. Welco's delivery report shows each phone's result, including any that couldn't be reached.

Reach every crew phone, whatever the carrier

One Welco address replaces a list of carrier addresses.

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing

Get my alarm texts working againBook a demo

A milk tank alarm sent to a crew member's phone

A dairy farm in southwestern Ontario had its bulk tank monitor email a Fido address. Through Welco, the milker on call reads this.

Alert email from tankmonitor@farm.example.com, subject “ALARM - Tank 2 Temperature High”. Welco trims it to one text of 102 characters: “Welco: [Barn 2 Tank] Milk temperature HIGH, 9 C, compressor fault at 3:35 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Text received: Welco: [Barn 2 Tank] Milk temperature HIGH, 9 C, compressor fault at 3:35 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

Characters1851021 credit

Animation: the alert email "ALARM - Tank 2 Temperature High" is trimmed into one text: "Welco: [Barn 2 Tank] Milk temperature HIGH, 9 C, compressor fault at 3:35 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."

More farm examples are on the agriculture and dairy alarms page.

Frequently asked questions

Which network does my prepaid phone use?

The brand's website or plan details usually say. In Canada, most prepaid and flanker brands belong to Rogers, Bell, Telus or Vidéotron. For alarms through Welco, you don't need to know, because Welco texts the number. That makes carrier research one less job on switch day.

Is Koodo or Public Mobile email-to-text still working?

Public Mobile users reported msg.telus.com still working in 2025, and Telus has announced no end date. Our sources say nothing about Koodo's gateway. Even so, we wouldn't build alarms on either. Bell and Rogers both stopped, and a dropped alarm is costly.

Does Freedom Mobile have an email-to-text address?

We couldn't confirm one from a source we trust, so we don't list it. If a Freedom phone is on your alarm list through an email address, send it a test alarm today. Better still, have its owner join Welco from an invite instead of relying on a gateway.

Do prepaid phones receive Welco alarm texts?

Yes. Any Canadian or US mobile number that can receive texts can get Welco alarms, prepaid or not. The person confirms the number once by replying YES. If their service lapses, the delivery report will show the text wasn't delivered.

Can one alarm reach phones on different prepaid brands?

Yes. One Welco address can send the same alarm to a Fido phone, a Koodo phone and a Freedom phone at once. Each phone gets it once. For the official AT&T notice that also covered Cricket in the US, see our AT&T txt.att.net page.

What does it cost to text a prepaid crew through Welco?

Each text uses message credits from your plan, and there is no charge per crew member. A short alarm uses one credit, so a bigger crew adds texts, not seat fees. The 7-day free trial includes 15 credits for a first test, and plans are on the pricing page in US dollars.

Will a 3 a.m. alarm wake the whole prepaid crew?

Only if you want it to. On-call routing sends night alarms to the person on call and daytime ones to the wider crew. If texts still go missing after the switch, check why alarm texts stop.

Text your crew without knowing their carrier

Invite your prepaid crew, get a YES from each phone, and change one address. Compare plans or start now.

Get my alarm texts working againBook a demo

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing