Twitter co-founder Biz Stone canned UK inbound SMS in August, warning excessive termination fees could cost the service $1,000 per user per year. The messages were routed through the Isle Of Man, where, despite voice calls being billed the same rates as on the UK mainland, SMS rates charged to services by Isle telcos are unregulated. The breakthrough came in recent weeks after the appointment of Kevin Thau as Twitter’s mobile business development VP in January. Thau has been meeting carriers in Europe and the SMS return comes at just the right time, with Twitter actually threatening to go mainstream, and now confirming plans for a premium option.

Update: Vodafone’s release hints at other operator deals to come, stressing it’s the “the only operator in the UK today” with a Twitter deal. Turns out SMS received from Twitter will be free for “the first few weeks from launch”, and then become part of bundles under regular charges.

Update 2: From the terms: “Usage is subject to a fair usage of 500 messages per user per month. If you are abusing the service or consistently exceeding this limit, we may ask you to moderate your behaviour and in extreme cases, we may block your use of the Twitter SMS service.”