I run my own little mini telco for myself and it’s both interesting and fun.
Admittedly, I am also forced to maintain a “2fa mule” to forward 2fa to email and twilio number but that’s all part of the fun :)
2. Calls (to an iPhone, at least) where the number isn't already in address book show up as "Spam Risk" rather than the phone number.
3. Have had some people unable to text a voip.ms number, eg from Comcast mobile.
I'm not trying to hate on them or anything. I'm a happy customer for what they are. I just think these are limitations of all consumer-facing libre-protocol VOIP services, that GVoice manages to sidestep due to Fi, but I'd love to be wrong.
FWIW I've found the Voip.ms Android SMS app a bit flaky.
So, again - my phone number is a twilio number and I use that for voice/sms/humans but my 2FA goes to a "2FA mule" that I keep in my office:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28251107
... and all of these phones are just MVNO sims that I purchase pseudonymously and can just be thrown away at any time.
I don't care about losing my phone or my SIM card.
"all of these phones" implies you have expanded to multiple mules? I presume for multiple accounts at the same service? Is there any indication that really works for eg making it so all your Google accounts don't get locked at once? Or are you doing it to undermine the use of phone numbers for cross-service surveillance association?
FWIW I haven't looked in a while, but the cheapest US consumer SIM I've found is H2O Wireless (on AT&T) at $10 per 3 months.
I don't have any google accounts.
"Or are you doing it to undermine the use of phone numbers for cross-service surveillance association?"
I am doing it because I love tinkering with the telephone network.
I haven't been in love with GVoice since I degoogled my designated "mobile phone" (I've just been limping along without being able to respond to texts on the go), but haven't taken the leap to Voip.ms or Flowroute, due to the reputation problem (eg many banks' snake oil authentications reject "voip" numbers).
My tentative plan is to move my main longstanding "main number" to one of those VOIP providers, and move snake oil auths to either the SIM card in my "mobile phone", a separate SIM on a fixed cell modem, or perhaps just a new GVoice number (which only needs to receive, so interop is easy by forwarding to email).