This is great.
I ported my primary phone number into Twilio years ago. Most apps/websites have no problem with a `voip` number type. But some systems, including Twitter, have refused to accept it.
I ported my primary phone number into Twilio years ago. Most apps/websites have no problem with a `voip` number type. But some systems, including Twitter, have refused to accept it.
A few years ago I was frustrated about paying CA$100/month for my phone plan in Canada for unlimited talk/text and a few gigs of data a month. I realized I only needed the data.
I wrote an app that directs phone calls straight to voicemail and then emails the missed calls and voicemail transcription and mp3s. SMS messages are sent to email and email replies get sent back as SMS. I made this a product at https://ringer.io.
I also picked up two CA$15/month data only SIMs (3GB each) from Fido.
So now I could only receive voicemail and I would use Google Hangouts Dialer to make traditional phone calls, which was very rare. I have to admit it was awesome not having the ability to receive a phone call.
I used WhatsApp day-to-day for texting and video calls.
Eventually the need to receive calls kicked up a notch so I switched my number over to https://openphone.co for US$10/month. They are on Twilio as well so it was a painless port (ie: one API call).
The OpenPhone app is "good enough" for me. If I had to talk a lot using traditional phone calls I would pay for a dedicated talk/text plan.
But I'm happy paying CA$30/month for 6GB of data and US$10/month for the phone/text line.
It's extremely common in the USA since most people in the usa have phone plans that include unlimited MMS and SMS, third-party chat apps like WhatsApp never became ubiquitous here as a result of that basic functionality being available through the phone.
I think most people here use either Messenger or iMessage, the latter being the case in my circle of friends.
I use Google Voice and my family uses group text to coordinate things like dinner. I only knew about dinner because my wife gets the group texts.
GVoice eventually fixed the group text problem, but I don't get all the messages and I get them out of order. I also get other group texts with important info that I wasn't getting before.
I have no idea how many other group texts I'm missing out on that I might actually want to be a part of or was missing out on. Everyone assumes that group text works with all recipients all the time, and since it has no way of telling the sender it failed to deliver, no one ever follows up.