4 ms·

Flying Spaghetti Monster I hate that this is real: > Only mobile phones can receive text messages > Some service providers support sending and receiving text

Flying Spaghetti Monster I hate that this is real: > Only mobile phones can receive text messages > Some service providers support sending and receiving text messages to fixed-line numbers. There are also online services like Skype that can send and receive text messages. "Oh but not-mobile-number phone numbers are always fraudulent so we don't accept them!" Great, I love getting caught in spam traps because I have a mobile phone...but it is a VoIP-backed system so the numbers show up as VoIP. (BTW, Verizon's "My Numbers" feature also show up as VoIP numbers, not mobile.) Even more annoying: "Oh, but a bunch of people we know who are also technology professionals happen to use Google Voice / Google Fi so we'll just whitelist them." Grrr. So now I have to care what my "mobile" provider uses for its underlying network or just use Google. And the last one: My credit union just sent out a terms of service update saying I "cannot use Google Voice, VoIP, or similar numbers with Zelle." OK, but I already have a number like that registered, what now? "Your Zelle access is suspended until you give us your mobile number." But that is my mobile number. "Too bad."

rsync 8y ago
It's worth noting that a CLEC (or other provider) can, in fact, denote a non-mobile number (or block of numbers) as "mobile" so that it can do things like receive text verifications from short codes (like your bank, or gmail, uses). This is expensive and time-consuming, however, and almost no CLEC (or other such provider) will do it - you have to petition and register your number(s) with every single mobile provider and get them to accept that these are not sources of spam, etc. I have this problem because my main, personal number is actually a twilio number (as I built my own personal telco within twilio) and this means I cannot receive validation messages from shortcodes (like a bank). I spoke to some twilio engineers at Signal and they confirmed that it would indeed be possible to register twilio numbers as "mobile" but too expensive ...
- arthurfm 8y ago
  > I have this problem because my main, personal number is actually a twilio number (as I built my own personal telco within twilio) and this means I cannot receive validation messages from shortcodes (like a bank) Why does Twilio work for me for SMS 2FA? Is it because I m using an '07' number in the UK? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227631
  - rsync 8y ago
    It's possible that your 2FA SMS messages are being sent to you FROM a normal phone number and not a shortcode ... The problem is not that I can't do 2FA - that's just SMS messaging. The problem is, I can't receive messages from a shortcode, which is different than a normal phone number.

rsync 8y ago

It's worth noting that a CLEC (or other provider) can, in fact, denote a non-mobile number (or block of numbers) as "mobile" so that it can do things like receive text verifications from short codes (like your bank, or gmail, uses). This is expensive and time-consuming, however, and almost no CLEC (or other such provider) will do it - you have to petition and register your number(s) with every single mobile provider and get them to accept that these are not sources of spam, etc. I have this problem because my main, personal number is actually a twilio number (as I built my own personal telco within twilio) and this means I cannot receive validation messages from shortcodes (like a bank). I spoke to some twilio engineers at Signal and they confirmed that it would indeed be possible to register twilio numbers as "mobile" but too expensive ...

arthurfm 8y ago
> I have this problem because my main, personal number is actually a twilio number (as I built my own personal telco within twilio) and this means I cannot receive validation messages from shortcodes (like a bank) Why does Twilio work for me for SMS 2FA? Is it because I m using an '07' number in the UK? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227631
- rsync 8y ago
  It's possible that your 2FA SMS messages are being sent to you FROM a normal phone number and not a shortcode ... The problem is not that I can't do 2FA - that's just SMS messaging. The problem is, I can't receive messages from a shortcode, which is different than a normal phone number.