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Comment by Zigurd | Hacker News Reader

This is one reason why I have a Google Voice number. If my underlying. number is "lost" I can just reconfigure GV. But there is some (increasingly rare) 2FA that does not work with numbers other than telco numbers. When you sign up an SMS vendor for 2FA, make sure it works with VoIP services.

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This is even worse. You’re boned when Google bans your account and refuses to tell you why.

You can still port your number away from Google even if they ban you.

How? Don't you have to unlock your number first somehow?

> But there is some (increasingly rare) 2FA that does not work with numbers other than telco numbers.

My experience is that this is not "increasingly rare" but "almost universal" at this point. VoIP numbers are useless for SMS account verification. People who thought they could bypass phone company price gouging found themselves out in the cold when signing up for email accounts, social media accounts, or even their own bank.

You mean increasingly common?

I have found that my GV number has become useless for most TOTP services, and for a lot of services that want a number to send a text.

Both based on my experiences and having worked on mobile infrastructure (though not messaging), I am puzzled why this would trend in the wrong direction. Messaging is all IP since LTE. I can imagine poor integration/operations in parts of networks still using an SMSC and IP/SM gateway. But why would there be a general trend against interoperation?

I think because 100% of Google Voice numbers are forwarding numbers, and 2fa folks feel like that is a risk factor.

I really don’t know, but I do know it’s trending that way for GV, specifically.

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