> Voice SMS is a mess too. 50% of services can't SMS it a code because Google blocks it. Other services won't accept it for SMS codes because its "not a real phone."
The first part of that shouldn't be true. I've used mine to receive all kinds of SMS and it always works fine _except_ for the services that just won't accept the number. Only run across maybe one or two of those, over some years.
What happens is some organizations run a verifying to see if its a VOIP number, and if it is, considers it invalid for SMS based 2FA, and other authentication, presumably to stop hackers. Some big names use these lists, most notably Zelle to transfer money. Discord as well.
Why Google also seems to block incoming SMS from Microsoft Authentication and others is beyond me. Maybe MS isn't sending because it doesn't consider that number real and just fails silently on their end? Maybe Google's own lists are very aggressive. I suspect the latter because this comes up a lot. No one seems to have a good answer to any of this because there's no laws requiring transparency so they hide their rube-goldberg-esque SMS policies behind obscurity and its up to me, the customer, to somehow navigate this mess.
Yes, from regular people things are fine, but my life isn't dictated by regular people but the mega corporations capitalism creates and how I have to cater to their various technological whims. If my phone can't get messages because these big companies are always feuding in some way, then I'm locked out of essential services I need to live, have a job, do banking, etc. Its a small comfort that my friends can text me when I can't get texts from my bank, money transfers, or for work. As of right now in the USA, having a VOIP number be your primary phone number is unfeasible. I have a work cell with a "real" number that I use for at least 4 different services for SMS because of this issue.
That's really weird. Ya the VOIP thing I've experienced. I don't think I've ever found a company that actually tried to send sms my way and it failed though. Maybe just luck, I don't happen to use any of those companies you mentioned.
Anyway, yeah that's lame. I'm personally abandoning ship from Google Voice myself anyway, but for other reasons.
Just like Microsoft might not want users on cheap VOIP lines because those services tend to be like in the seedy underbelly of the web, Google also doesn't want it to be useful for that purpose, for exactly the same reason.
The first part of that shouldn't be true. I've used mine to receive all kinds of SMS and it always works fine _except_ for the services that just won't accept the number. Only run across maybe one or two of those, over some years.
For SMS from real people it works fine ofc.