Bell discontinues Email to SMS service: Here's an alternative

The “email-to-text” service helped many companies and organizations over the years.

You would send an email to a special address provided by Bell… and this message was automatically transformed into an SMS and sent to the targeted phone.

This mechanism has become essential in many operations:

• computer systems that send an email when a server goes down;
• industrial sensors that trigger an email alert;
• access controllers that notify a technician in case of failure;
• internal systems that automatically send an email when a critical threshold is reached critical infrastructures (heating, ventilation, transportation, security) that use email as an alert channel.

Starting December 31, 2025, Bell will completely disable this service.
This means that all alerts that rely on a simple email sending will stop working, unless you migrate to a new solution. And that’s precisely where Activity Messenger becomes a modern, reliable, and easy-to-integrate alternative.

What is the “email-to-text” service?

It works like this:

• An internal system (software, server, equipment, sensor, etc.) sends an automatic email.
• This email is directed to a special address of the type: number@sms.bell.ca
• Bell receives this email, converts it into an SMS.
• The SMS is immediately sent to the responsible person’s phone.

There was no platform, no dashboard, no complex API.
A simple email triggered a text message.

That’s why so many companies and municipalities used it as a minimalist but effective alert mechanism.

Activity Messenger, a Canadian alternative for email-to-text messaging

Activity Messenger is a Canadian alternative to replace “email-to-text”
It allows you to receive an email and convert it into an SMS, just like Bell used to do.

Reception of automated emails

Each organization gets a unique and secure address capable of receiving emails from your internal systems.

Instant conversion to SMS

As soon as the email is received, Activity Messenger automatically transforms the content into an SMS.

Routing to the right person or people

You choose the logic:

• send to the on-call technician
• send to the IT team
• send to an intervention group
• send to a manager in case of emergency
• send to multiple recipients at the same time

Logging and evidence

Activity Messenger also offers:

• a complete log of alerts
• the exact time of sending
• the SMS delivery confirmation

An opportunity to modernize your text messaging system

Bell’s “email-to-text” service has been useful for many years.

Its discontinuation may seem concerning, but it actually opens the door to modernizing your system.

With Activity Messenger, you can continue sending automatic SMS alerts the moment an email is generated—while significantly improving your response capabilities.

Book a demo with one of our experts today.