[arking1]

I am an assistant chief of a volunteer fire department. The method I use to send non-emergency announcements to my members is through text msgs. I currently use a program called notepager which is installed on my computer. I am trying to find a way to send text msgs on a mobile device to a group of about 35 people who use multiple different service providers. My phone plan is nextel because I need the direct connect feature. I contacted them and they told me there was no way to do this with any of there phones. Is there any way I could do this on a blackberry? Maybe with third party software? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ryan

[ezrunner]

Wirelessly posted (hope is everything!)

You can on a BB create a group that contains the 35 members regardless of providers. Then be able to send the same text out to the
In one swoop

[kjjb0204]

I've created several text msg groups on my bb. Works great. I also understand that the upcoming OS release of 4.6 will allow you to see distribution lists you've created in outlook. 4.5 can't do that.

[Frank Castle]

Unsure if you have any budget for this or strictly want a free solution but look into wallace wireless they have some fantastic products around this.

[UncleMike]

Maybe this would work for you?

1. Create a new Gmail account - maybe something like
2. Create a filter on that account for messages FROM your Nextel phone (i.e. )
3. Forward messages matching the filter to the SMS-equivalent email addresses of the other members (i.e. , )
4. From your Nextel handset, send an MMS message to

I imagine all the members you're trying to send to have all have Nextel phones, so figuring out the SMS-equivalent email addresses should be easy - <phonenumber>@page.nextel.com. If they are on different carriers it should still be rather easy to determine these addresses.

You won't be able to edit the forwarding list on the fly from the field, but since these are non-emergency messages, maybe that won't matter. Also, there will also be no delivery confirmation, but I don't know that this is even possible with SMS directly from the handset

You may also want to try setting up a talk group on your handset. You'll only be able to add contacts with a DC number to a talk group (it's intended for use with Group Connect), but if the each also have a mobile phone number in their contact entry, you may be able to select the talk group as the destination of your SMS message. I can't try this myself, as my Nextel phone has a Boost Mobile SIM card in it, and because of that I can't do anything group related.