Comment by aviditas

One of the appeals of this type of service is to create a Google account without providing your cell phone number. A bit of the chicken/egg issue if there isn't a way to make an account without using Google or Facebook. I would sign up in a heartbeat if there was an email/password option instead. Another comment brings up another good point of the type of service the inbound numbers are identified as. Most services that require a phone number to verify the account registration also use services like nuestar to filter out Voip/DiDs and other phone numbers that are not tied to a physical SIM card.