Last updated: 9 September 2026.
AT&T shut down its email to text gateway on 17 June 2025. Its support page says so in one sentence: on that date, the email-to-text and text-to-email service was shut down. Anything your systems have sent to @txt.att.net or @mms.att.net since then has not been delivered.
That was over a year ago. Either you noticed the alerts stop, or you are about to find out that they did. This page covers how to check, what to replace the gateway with, and how to get the alerts that matter onto a phone in an afternoon.
What Did AT&T Shut Off, and When?
Both directions, on 17 June 2025. AT&T's support article (checked 9 September 2026) states that email can no longer be used to send or receive texts on AT&T Wireless. The SMS gateway at @txt.att.net and the MMS gateway at @mms.att.net both stopped.
There is no grace period and no successor from AT&T for small senders. The gateway was free and open to any sender, and AT&T's notice gives no reason for closing it.
How Do You Know If Your Alerts Went Silent?
You usually don't. A text that never arrives looks exactly like a quiet night. The device got no error, and any bounce went to a sender address nobody reads. Four checks, from fastest to most thorough:
- When did you last get an alert text? If the last one from your monitoring tool or NAS is dated before 17 June 2025, the gateway is why.
- Search your configs. Notification contacts in your monitoring tool, alert settings on your NAS, UPS cards, sensor gateways, alarm panels and scripts, for
txt.att.netandmms.att.net. Search fortmomail.netandvtext.comwhile you are there. - Check the notification log. Nagios, Zabbix and PRTG all record what they sent and when. A log full of "sent" entries with no texts on your phone is the signature of this failure.
- Send a test from the device. Not from your own mailbox. Trigger the real notification path on the real box and watch the mail server log for the result.
Four Ways to Get Server Alerts on a Phone Now
There is no free replacement. Each of these costs money or effort, and each fits a different environment.
| Option | How it reaches the phone | Cost (checked 9 Sep 2026) | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial SMS provider | The provider gives you a new email-to-SMS address or an API and sends texts over its own carrier agreements. | Per-text pricing plus a monthly platform fee in most cases. Get the number from the provider you are considering. | Teams that want to keep texting and have the volume to justify it. | For US traffic, expect A2P 10DLC registration before messages are allowed through. A text still splits at 160 characters and can still be silenced by Do Not Disturb. |
| Incident platform (PagerDuty, Opsgenie) | Alerts arrive by email or integration; the platform pushes, texts or calls the person on duty. | PagerDuty offers a free tier for up to 5 users and a Professional plan from $21 per user per month billed annually (pagerduty.com, checked 9 Sep 2026). Opsgenie shuts down on 5 April 2027 (Atlassian, checked 9 Sep 2026). | Teams that rotate on-call duty and want timelines and reporting. | Email ingestion is quick; rotations, escalation policies and reporting are the project. Per-user pricing adds up. See our PagerDuty and Opsgenie pages. |
| Push notification app (Pushover and similar) | You forward alerts to the app's address or API; it pushes them to the phone. | Usually a small one-time or low monthly charge per user. Confirm on the vendor's pricing page. | One or two people with smartphones who want cheap, fast notifications. | Depends on the app staying installed, permitted and online. A push is dismissed with one swipe. See our Pushover comparison. |
| Text-to-speech phone call (Email2Phone) | The alert email goes to your @email2phone.net address. Your phone rings and the message is read out. | $10 a month for 40 credits, with larger bundles at $100 and $400. One credit covers up to 60 seconds to a US or Canadian number. Pricing. | The small number of alerts that must reach a person, on any phone, with no app. | Voice calls only. No SMS, no API, no mobile app. Not the tool for hundreds of routine notifications a day. |
Why Put the Critical Alerts on a Phone Call?
Because the alerts you lost in June 2025 were the ones you had decided needed to reach your phone. A backup that failed, or a RAID array that degraded. If a text was worth sending for those, a call that reads them aloud is worth more.
A call reaches phones a text cannot: the landline in the plant office, the desk phone on the night shift, the flip phone of the person who refuses to install anything. It needs no app, no OS permission and no carrier gateway that can be retired without notice. And it is not cut at 160 characters. Email2Phone reads the subject and body aloud and lets you dial in free from the US, Canada or the UK to hear the message again.
It can also get past Do Not Disturb, with one caveat. iPhone and Android both let the owner allow calls from chosen contacts through Do Not Disturb. That is a setting on the handset, made by the person carrying it, and Email2Phone cannot force it.
What a text never did is confirm that anyone read it. Email2Phone requires a key press: 8 to save, 7 to delete, 5 to reply. No key press, and it calls back at 5, 15, 30, 60 and 60 minutes. And when a device throws 40 alerts at once, you get one call announcing 40 messages, not 40 calls. More in how Email2Phone works.
How to Set Up a Phone Call for Critical Alerts
The change on your side is the one you would make for any new gateway. Swap an email address. Four steps.
- Step 1: Get your address. Start a free 30-day trial. No credit card, and the trial delivers up to three emails a day as calls, which is enough for testing. You get an address like
yourname@email2phone.netand you add the phone number that should ring. - Step 2: Point the tool at it. In Nagios, that is the
emailfield on the contact definition. In Zabbix and PRTG, it is the user's notification email. On a NAS or UPS card, it is the notification recipient. Replace5551234567@txt.att.netwith your Email2Phone address. Our Nagios, Zabbix and PRTG pages show where the field is. - Step 3: Add one filter so only critical alerts ring. In Configuration, create a filter with a single condition, Subject contains CRITICAL, and the action Call your mobile. Use whatever word your tool puts in critical subjects; for Nagios that is usually
CRITICALorDOWN. Leave the mobile un-ticked as a Default number: a phone that is not a default only rings when a filter calls it, so warnings and recoveries stay out of the call queue. - Step 4: Send a test from the device. Force a critical notification from the tool itself. Your phone rings and reads it out. Press 8 to save it. Then send one more and do not answer. If the phone has voicemail, the message is left there; if not, Email2Phone calls back five minutes later.
Verizon Is Next
AT&T was the second carrier to go. T-Mobile's @tmomail.net gateway is widely reported to have stopped delivering in late 2024, though T-Mobile has never published a notice. Verizon has: @vtext.com and @vzwpix.com shut down by 31 March 2027, and some senders lose access sooner. If you moved your AT&T alerts to a Verizon number as a workaround, read what breaks when Verizon email to text shuts down before you settle in.
The Bottom Line
AT&T's gateway has been dead since 17 June 2025, and the failure made no noise. Check your last alert text, search your configs for txt.att.net, and test from the device. Then choose a replacement on its merits: a paid SMS provider to keep texting, an incident platform if you run rotations, a push app for cheap notifications, and a phone call for the alerts that have to reach a human. Do not put the fix on another carrier gateway. The next one has a date on it.
Get a Phone Call When a Critical Email Arrives
Email2Phone rings your phone and reads the alert aloud. Any phone, mobile, landline or VoIP, with no app and no carrier gateway, and it calls back if nobody presses a key. $10 a month covers 40 credits. Read the full guide to email to phone call alerts, or start the free trial and point one device at it today. Still weighing texts against calls? Our post on email to phone versus SMS for business alerts goes through the trade-offs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is There a Free Alternative to AT&T Email to Text?
No. The carrier gateways were the free option, and AT&T's ended on 17 June 2025. Every replacement, from a commercial SMS provider to an incident platform, a push app or a phone call service, costs money, effort or both.
Can Email2Phone Send a Text Instead of a Call?
No. Email2Phone only places voice calls. It reads the email aloud when your phone answers. If you need SMS, use a commercial SMS provider for those messages.
Does It Work With a Landline?
Yes. Email2Phone dials a phone number. Mobile, landline or VoIP all work, and there is nothing to install on the phone.
Sources
- AT&T, "Say goodbye to email-to-text and text-to-email", att.com/support/article/wireless/KM1061254/. Accessed 9 September 2026.
- Verizon, "Notice to Customers: Shutdown of email to Vtext and VZWPix", verizon.com/support/vtext-vzwpix-shutdown/. Accessed 9 September 2026.
- T-Mobile, "Help with scams & spam", t-mobile.com/support/plans-features/help-with-scams-spam-and-fraud. Accessed 9 September 2026. No shutdown notice found on t-mobile.com.
- Atlassian, "Migrate from Opsgenie", atlassian.com/software/opsgenie/migration. Accessed 9 September 2026.
- PagerDuty, "Incident Management Pricing", pagerduty.com/pricing/incident-management/. Accessed 9 September 2026.