Online SIMs

Some services, such as Signal, require a phone number to setup a new account. In most countries it became really difficult to purchase new SIM cards anonymously. Therefore services that offer online SIMs are a good alternative to that, e.g https://smspool.net or https://smsplaza.io.

Warning

We do not know any of the operators of those sites and we don’t know what their political or moral stances are.

Just by paying with anonymous methods, such as Monero, you can be sure to stay anonymous when purchasing a SIM, or SMS.

In most cases, those web services offer a wide range of countries, from which you can select your number. You can either purchase a one-time SMS for just a few cents, or you can permanently rent a number for a few Euros/Dollars per month. While using one-time SIMs may appear attractive, keep in mind that numbers may be re-distributed. It may happen that the one-time number you used will be assigned to another customer, who could then technically “push you out” of the service when re-registering at the same service again.

While this is technically possible and there have been reported cases of people losing their accounts because of this, it seems this rarely happens.

Generally, the method for registering an online SIM is the same everywhere:

1. Create an account for an online SMS service.
2. Add Monero to your account.
3. Decide if you want to have a one-time SMS or if you prefer to rent a SIM for a period of time.
4. Choose a country of origin.
5. Purchase/rent the SIM. This will display your new phone number.
6. Use the phone number to register a new account.
7. The registration PIN may occur at the web interface of the online sms service.

Note

It is common that purchased numbers don’t work for registering new accounts at the first time. Usually the success rate is somewhere between 30-60%. So, if even after a few minutes no registration PIN arrived at you online SMS account, just buy another new SIM/SMS until it works.