[adunar]

Definitely not useless!

Using an Android app as an SMS gateway is convenient for personal texting, but it's even more valuable for organizations working in developing countries -- where SMS is even more important, but services like Twilio don't provide local phone numbers and getting a shortcode can cost thousands of dollars.

My start-up (http://telerivet.com) works with a bunch of organizations that pay us for a more advanced version of essentially the same basic concept. (For example, Kiva.org uses our system to communicate with their borrowers in Kenya via an Android SMS gateway.)