If you're on AT&T, it's yournumber@txt.att.net, or if that doesn't work yournumber@mms.att.net Now, to receive your e-mail via SMS, you'll need to forward it to your gateway address: Most e-mail services offer this for free in the settings page. Here's how to do it in Gmail , for example. You'll have to turn this on before you lose Internet access. So, like, now. If this doesn't work , and in my experience it may not, depending on your carrier and e-mail provider, you can try an automated forwarding service such as TXTJet . Courtesy of BuzzFeed To send e-mails via text , you can usually just enter an e-mail address instead of a phone number. These same e-mail gateways work in reverse, meaning you can either respond directly to messages forwarded through the gateway or send a new message by entering "email_address@whatever.com" in the recipient box in your texting app. This works on many older phones, too, though typing out email addresses on a T9 keypad will be a chore. It's not the most graceful process, but it works. Courtesy of BuzzFeed Source: lh5.googleusercontent.com You can do almost anything on Twitter via SMS, which, if you're interested, you can read about here . But in the event of an outage, there are really only two Twitter SMS features you'll need. To get simple updates from any account, set up an SMS Fast Follow. This does not require your Twitter account, and will keep your text volume low. Just send "Follow