Text messages? That's a different story: Over the past week, I've missed a number of important texts and confused my contacts who have seen messages from my unfamiliar Project Fi phone number.

You can send a text message to any modern cell phone even if you use a different wireless provider. Each text message is limited to 160 characters, including spaces.

People love to send messages to one another. Estimates put the number of text messages sent at more than 6 billion each day, which is pretty close to one message for every person on the planet ...