As we all know, the new iPhone 3G is released exactly one week after USA’s Independence Day (phone comes out July 11). But the release of the new iPhone will herald anything but independence. Chris has been using Teleflip to text me for quite a while now. It works well.

AT&T is now charging more for text messaging plans and text messaging is no longer included in a plan. Who ever knew the price of sending 160 characters could increase faster than the price of gas?

Save Money on Text Messages with Teleflip

The idea is simple. Instead of sending an SMS message ($0.15/message without a plan), send an email to the phone number with Teleflip. Though cell phone carriers attach an email address to your SMS inbox, it’s not always so easy to know which carrier your contact uses. That’s why there’s TeleFlip. This is a free service that figures out where that text message ought to go. Address it to @teleflip.com. Your message gets delivered straight to your bud’s phone, with a little post-roll ad of course.

Here’s the best part: when they reply to the text, it will automatically route it right back to your email address. You’ll receive their response in your email inbox — not as an SMS. So you don’t have to pay for the texts either way.

Plus, the reply email will be genuinely from their cell phone (not an “@teleflip.com” address). Thereafter, you should use that address instead because it won’t put the tail advertisement from TeleFlip at the end of the text message. Set up a separate contact field in your Address Book.app for your friends’ phone numbers. It will save you some time when texting back and forth.

How else do you avoid telecom companies price-gouging you? Let us know in some comments!