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by lxgr 1401 days ago
It's actually comparable to SMS OTP delivery in most countries. (Only the US and a few other "shared cost" countries offer inbound SMS delivery for sub-cent amounts; in the EU and other "sender pays" countries, mid-single cent amounts are the norm.)

That still doesn't make using a phone number a good authentication or identification value, though.
1 comments
nikolay 1401 days ago
No, it's not. If you use Twilio, maybe, but there are many other options today, one of them being SignalWire [0]. Another being Plivo [1].

[0]: https://signalwire.com/pricing/messaging

[1]: https://www.plivo.com/pricing/

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lxgr 1401 days ago
Note that I wrote "most countries other than the US".

Your first reference seems to be US only; the second one lists around 2-10 cent per message to most non-US destinations.

Since this is based on what phone networks charge these service providers and other networks for inbound SMS, anything much cheaper than that is usually using unreliable SIM farms or even more dubious means of message delivery (like hijacked Android smartphones on unlimited messaging plans used without the owner's explicit consent).

Viewed globally, cheap and reliable outbound SMS are a US-specific anomaly.

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nikolay 1401 days ago
For thouse countries, typically with lower standards of living, their pricing will be even more prohibitive! There are tricks like callbacks, etc. to deal with expensive texting and many services use those already!
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lxgr 1401 days ago
Let's not get into the debate about standards of living in the EU vs. the US, but doesn't all of this outline my original point, i.e. 3-9 cents per authentication being pretty on par with what companies seem to already be willing to pay for two-factor authentication (via SMS-OTP) globally?
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nikolay 1401 days ago
In other words, it's an abusive copycat pricing model (if others are thieves, we should be, too). Except there's a lot more infrastructure and personnel behind a text message, so, tru.ID are bigger thieves! Also, the vast difference is that tru.ID requieres an app and SMS does not, so, you should not compare apples to oranges! If you really want your customers to install yet another app, then good luck! In fact, their app is a bit finicky as I installed it and starts with a Java error and then a endless spinner on a blank screen! Not to mention, they have 2 QR codes next to each other for download on their web pages, way too close to each other, and not sure why they don't have a simple device-based redirect with a single QR code, or use another abusive service to do this trivial job if they are not up to the challenge themselves.
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