Maybe my best travel advice - virtual mobile for SMS

[jaymcc]

About a year ago I started digging to find a solution to just about every website (of importance) wanting to send me an SMS to log in. I never want to be overseas using a different SIM on my phone and not be able to access my banking, or Qantas, or whatever due to not having the ability to receive a text message.

After some playing I found a service that lets you setup a virtual mobile with an Australian mobile number. For all intents and purposes, it's a real mobile number and if I could be bothered I can install an app on my phone to actually answer it if somewhere calls it. However i've setup a process to send every SMS i receive as a message through to my email. If someone leaves a voicemail, i get an email with the voicemail attached also.

If i'm overseas i'll generally have wifi (or data on a SIM), so getting an email is far easier than getting an SMS. I progressively moved a bunch of logins from my real mobile to this virtual mobile. I moved credit card accounts, bank accounts, a couple of other critical services, all to this virtual mobile and now whenever one of these services send me a message to authenticate me i get an email that looks like the attached. In fact i've started to use if for just about anything that asks for a mobile now.

Many sites now offer a one-time-passcode, and I use those where I can too, but some just aren't at that point yet.

It's not free, nor cheap really, it's about $20/month. However it gives peace of mind that i'll be able to login to what I need when I don't have my normal mobile.

No promo - no kickbacks - hopefully just good advice.

Oh - there's also a promotion from Woolies on up to 2500 points on Giftcards right now.

 

[Lost Redditor]

I didn't know there was much of a market for this. I created a similar solution in the AWS cloud just for my own use. It would not be too challenging to scale it up for commercial use Although there would be tons of regulation for storing people's personal information and verifying identity etc. Maybe this is not just a week of hacking to get it done

For reference, I think my AWS bill for this is only $1.14 month, cost per message negligible ($0.003 I believe)

Edit: cost of owning the phone number is separate. I think $4/month

 

[jaymcc]

I don't see Australia in the list of providers in AWS when you request a number. Wonder why i didn't look at this in the first place... I remember going to look at SMS gateways but there was some limitation that I don't remember now that stopped it from working the way I wanted. I think you had to initiate an outbound SMS before it would accept an inbound or something like that. How did you get an Australian mobile number through SNS or Pinpoint?

 

[Lost Redditor]

I don't see Australia in the list of providers in AWS when you request a number. Wonder why i didn't look at this in the first place... I remember going to look at SMS gateways but there was some limitation that I don't remember now that stopped it from working the way I wanted. I think you had to initiate an outbound SMS before it would accept an inbound or something like that. How did you get an Australian mobile number through SNS or Pinpoint?

That's why I said "similar" - I used a Canadian number. So it wouldn't work if the provider requires an Aussie number. Australia is so strict on who can issue/manage Aussie mobile numbers. I haven't looked at any other cloud providers, perhaps Azure has something you could use?

 

[kpc]

I have a dual (physical) SIM phone....my Aus SIM card (not on roaming) receives the SMS wherever I am. I buy a local SIM for my destination(s).

 

[Lost Redditor]

I have a dual (physical) SIM phone....my Aus SIM card (not on roaming) receives the SMS wherever I am. I buy a local SIM for my destination(s).

My phone only has one physical SIM slot. Yearning for the day Boost Mobile finally supports eSIM.

 

[Tawita]

I use Crazytel for this - $7.95 per month all up.

 

[jaymcc]

I use Crazytel for this - $7.95 per month all up.

This looks excellent. I should have come to the forum when I had the issue in the first place. I’m going to migrate to this service I think.

 

[Tawita]

This looks excellent. I should have come to the forum when I had the issue in the first place. I’m going to migrate to this service I think.

Check out Crazytel on the Whirlpool forum - lots of great information there, including special
discounts

 

[jaymcc]

Check out Crazytel on the Whirlpool forum - lots of great information there, including special
discounts

The setup was far easier than what I was using too - thanks for the recommendation.

 

[Cynicor]

I understand the problem a little, but I can’t quite figure out how it’s worth it. Why not just leave your sim on roaming with data off?
Receiving sms is free so it’s not a cost issue.
Is this because you are often in countries that don’t roam with your telco at all?
I’ve only had that issue in Cuba and parts of the Maldives.

 

[jaymcc]

I understand the problem a little, but I can’t quite figure out how it’s worth it. Why not just leave your sim on roaming with data off?
Receiving sms is free so it’s not a cost issue.
Is this because you are often in countries that don’t roam with your telco at all?
I’ve only had that issue in Cuba and parts of the Maldives.

When i'm overseas I'll generally buy a local sim and swap out my Aus SIM for that one temporarily, so I can get data cheaper than what I'd get from my normal telco.

 

[Cynicor]

Ah, i just use esims. iPhone can dual sim, dual esim or 1 physical and 1 esim.
So I keep my Aus sim running and esim the data, as well as get locals calls if applicable

 

[Tawita]

I understand the problem a little, but I can’t quite figure out how it’s worth it. Why not just leave your sim on roaming with data off?
Receiving sms is free so it’s not a cost issue.
Is this because you are often in countries that don’t roam with your telco at all?
I’ve only had that issue in Cuba and parts of the Maldives.

I'm in Kiribati, with very limited roaming options. This is by far the cheapest and easiest long-term solution for my situation.

 

[Cynicor]

I'm in Kiribati, with very limited roaming options. This is by far the cheapest and easiest long-term solution for my situation.

Absolutely. I just like to understand the use case, see what I am missing. A bit like the Maldives really.
If you were in SIN it might be a different matter