Soon you'll be able to text your friends from your own home, because ordinary phones are joining the text generation.
The success of texting on mobile phones caught the big phone companies by surprise, which is why it has taken so long for text messaging to hit home phones.
Another reason for the delay is because the way mobile phones send text messages won't work on ordinary phones.
Texts hidden in phone call
But now phone experts have solved the problem.
When you ring another phone, you send your number down the line as a series of tones. In future, your text message will ride alongside these beeps.
The first phone to send texts will be made by British Telecom. At first it will only be able to receive texts from Cellnet phones, but that will change in time.
