Orange do sort of have something like that. If you use their Orange Email service then you get a text message everytime you get a new email. You get the sender and a few words off the subject line. I used to have it enabled for everybody that emails me but Orange seems to attract a lot of spammers so I've turned it off now. There is an option to only alert you for certain addresses.

When I was with One-2-One (shows how long ago it was) they had a service there you'd email <yournumber>@one2one.net and it would send it to your mobile. If it exceeded the 160 character limit then it would split it up in multiple messages. Best part was that it was totally free but they soon realised it was cutting into their profits so they made it a per message charge.

- Trevor