(Sounds a familiar title - have I used it before, I wonder?)

A couple of my current and upcoming projects appear to have some mobile functionality to them, but flipping heck, is it a nightmare sorting out how and what stuff can be done.

It amazes me that this hasn't changed significantly since Creature Labs first proposed a game concept to a big American mobile operator a couple of years ago. Back then, they were bafflingly unable to provide technical specifications for any of the systems they were attempting to implement (3G, not surprisingly). I'm still having trouble figuring it out. I'm not sure I understand why all the operators don't have SMS to email gateways, why it isn't really easy to send images from phone to computer and back (mine seem to change size in transit even when MMSing to myself).

The poor bloke from Carphone Warehouse "head office" called just now and got an earful. I've had so much trouble with my phone - GPRS, WAP, and SMS have all given me gyp and it all stems from the fact that you never actually speak to anyone other than a motley collection of call centres - all of whom serve all the networks. It's no wonder you get three different answers to any one question. In the end he admitted that their "head office" was, itself, a call centre.

With any luck, I pick up a replacement handset today and with even more luck it will work. In the meantime, I found this free, no sign-up SMS To eMail Gateway. Very nice site - well organised and potentially quite useful. Anyone know of any others?

Except, bollocks. I can't actually test it out because I can't send SMS messages at the moment.