Subscribers of five cellphone carriers will be able to send and receive text messages using their phone numbers instead of e-mail addresses, regardless of their service providers, as early as fiscal 2010 .

The announcement on Tuesday is expected to increase the popularity of short message services in Japan and make it easier for subscribers to switch carriers.

Currently, customers of NTT DoCoMo Inc., KDDI Corp., Softbank Mobile Corp., Emobile Ltd. and Okinawa Cellular Telephone Co. can use short message services only with other subscribers of the same company.

The number portability system introduced in 2006 allows subscribers to switch carriers without changing their phone numbers. Click here for more.

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