Vodafone UK has signed a deal with Twitter to allow customers to send and receive SMS updates for free.
Twitter used to offer an inbound and outbound SMS service for free, but cancelled it in the UK last year, leaving the service available in just the US and Canada. The new contract between the two companies has again opened it up to UK users.
On the Twitter blog, co-founder Biz Stone said: "Extending the power of the real-time network globally through the simple technology of SMS is a driving goal for Twitter. Anyone in the world can update Twitter via SMS but receiving tweets on your mobile has been restricted to North America."
The service will be entirely free and be part of the normal text messaging bundle with Vodafone.
Stone also said that this service will be rolled out further. He said: "Twitter will continue to make arrangements with operators around the world so hopefully your country and your mobile provider will be next."
A spokesperson from Vodafone said: "We are very excited to be giving this service to our customers and if you were on Twitter last night you would have seen the excitement our customers had too about Vodafone bringing this service to the UK."
The shortcode for UK Vodafone customers is 86444 and you can activate your mobile in your Twitter settings.
