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

Cricket email to text is not working because Cricket rides on AT&T's network. Its addresses reportedly stopped with AT&T's gateway on June 17, 2025. For most prepaid brands, the gateway belongs to the network underneath. Change one address to your Welco address, and your crew's prepaid phones get alarm texts again, whatever the carrier.

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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 5551234567@sms.cricketwireless.net; the Cricket 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 5551234567@sms.cricketwireless.net is replaced with the Welco address crew-alarms@welco.ai, and alerts arrive again.
  • Cricket's sms.cricketwireless.net and mms.cricketwireless.net reportedly ended with AT&T's on June 17, 2025, per NVRtxt.
  • Metro by T-Mobile used T-Mobile's tmomail.net gateway, which reportedly stopped around December 2024.
  • Visible, Straight Talk and other Verizon-network brands use Verizon's vtext.com gateway, which Verizon expects to close by March 31, 2027.
  • Boost Mobile and Google Fi were reported working in 2026, with no promise beyond that.

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 moves from Cricket to Metro and keeps the same number. Their old address stops working, and nobody tells the alarm system.
  • A dead Cricket 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 brand usually rents space on a big network. Its email-to-text address runs on that network's mail system, so it lives or dies with it. That is how prepaid phones got caught in the shutdown of carrier email-to-text gateways.

That's why Cricket lost its gateway on the day AT&T's closed. 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. Brands not listed here weren't covered by the sources we could check.

Prepaid and low-cost brand gateways, read October 5, 2026

Cricket Wireless

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

Metro by T-Mobile

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

Visible

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

Straight Talk (Verizon phones)

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

Xfinity Mobile, Spectrum Mobile

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

Boost Mobile

Network
Boost
Gateway domain
sms.myboostmobile.com
Status, October 2026
Working (reported, 2026)

Google Fi

Network
Google Fi
Gateway domain
msg.fi.google.com
Status, October 2026
Working for now (reported, mid-2026)

Sources: 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); EmailToTxt: carrier status (read Oct 5, 2026)

Is a prepaid phone on my alarm list affected?

  1. 1.Does any system email an address ending in @sms.cricketwireless.net or @mms.cricketwireless.net?
  2. 2.Is anyone on call using Metro, Visible, Straight Talk or another prepaid brand, reached by an email address?
  3. 3.Has anyone on the list changed 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 mobile 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 farm's tank monitor used to email a Cricket 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 103 characters: “Welco: [Barn 2 Tank] Milk temperature HIGH, 48 F, compressor fault at 3:35 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Text received: Welco: [Barn 2 Tank] Milk temperature HIGH, 48 F, compressor fault at 3:35 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

Characters1791031 credit

Animation: the alert email "ALARM - Tank 2 Temperature High" is trimmed into one text: "Welco: [Barn 2 Tank] Milk temperature HIGH, 48 F, 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 which network it runs on. For alarms through Welco, you don't need to know. Welco texts the number, so the network behind it doesn't change anything. That makes carrier research one less job on switch day.

Is Boost Mobile email-to-text still working?

It was reported working in 2026, at sms.myboostmobile.com, according to NVRtxt. No shutdown date has been announced. Even so, we wouldn't build alarms on it. Several bigger gateways stopped with little or no warning, and a dropped alarm is costly.

Does Google Fi still have an email-to-text address?

Reports from mid-2026 say msg.fi.google.com was still working for now. That wording matters, since nobody has promised it will stay. If a Google Fi phone is on your alarm list, have its owner join Welco from an invite instead of relying on the gateway.

Do prepaid phones receive Welco alarm texts?

Yes. Any US or Canada 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 Cricket phone, a Metro phone and a Visible phone at once. Each phone gets it once. For the official AT&T notice that also covered Cricket, 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.

Will a 3 AM 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