By Paul Jay, CBCNews.ca. Following on the heels of similar announcements from Rogers and Bell, Telus said Monday that popular messaging service Twitter will be available using SMS text messaging.

Standard SMS charges will apply for the service, meaning Tweets will be treated as regular text messages at no additional charge for people with text messaging plans, and 15 cents per message for those without texting plans. The service is available as of Monday for Telus's flagship brand and its discount Koodo brand, said spokesperson Jim Johannsson.

Twitter users in Canada were already able to send updates via SMS, or short message service. But in November Twitter stopped allowing its users to receive updates from other users via SMS, citing the cost. Bell was the first to announce it had reached a deal to allow incoming messages at no extra cost in February, and Rogers followed last week.

It will be interesting to see if the messaging service's availability helps spur further adoption of Twitter north of the border. The service has already crossed over into the mainstream, with celebrities Ashton Kutcher and Oprah making headlines for dabbling with the tool.

And of course it's good news here at the CBC, as we have a host of Twitter feeds of our own.