How do you e-mail a text message to a British cell phone

There used to be a website where you could text any cell phone in Brazil for free, with only the cell phone number. The site doesn't exist anymore, but maybe something like that exists in the UK.

Try looking at the teleflip.com site. It allows you to send a text message from qua email for US numbers; me suspects the same will work overseas, but I'm not sure how much of the number (country code?) one uses.

(cellnumber@teleflip.com)

Not a free widget when you use it, but it works like a dream, is reliable and sends you an email when the SMS has been received...
And the best part is that you can use your keyboard instead of those tiny buttons

http://www.smsmac.com/en/index.html

Forgive me if this is not helpful, but if the phonee sends a text message to your account, you may get your answer?

Yes, my point was, however, if a message is sent from the that phone to your e-mail, you would have your answer (and be able to send a message to the phone in the future).

Are you saying you can't just call the person and ask him/her who is carrier is? From there, the carrier's web site could probably get you your answer.

Yes this works if you only know the phone # and not the provider.
It's just like making a call. If I called you over the phone, I would have no idea who your provider is, wouldn't I? I don't care who your provider is, it would make phoning a lot more complex than it is today if we needed to know who's networkwe're using, I just want to talk to that number.

And now instead of just talk, you just send a text message to that phone.
Now, if this always works IS dependent on the recipients provider, but nothing you can do about it:
- if the phone is off at the time, the sms may disappear for ever or take several hours (or even days) to get through
- some providers only take sms from within their country or within their client base (although this is decreaseing as most providers make a ton of money on sending an sms (at least they do in Europe).

Another issue is the recipient cannot reply back with an sms, unless you give them your mobile number in the settings of SMSforMac widget.

Some providers allow you to send an sms via email (e.g. my mobile number@gin.nl) is a working email address that sends a free ⚠ sms to my mobile, but not many providers will do this. Check out http://www.gin.com and this will open in a localized version.