Telegram has recently announced an update with a new feature for both users and businesses. The latter is arguably the more interesting one, as it allows the messaging platform to serve as a phone number verification service. Think TAC but not via SMS, and you more or less have the idea of what this is about.
As the announcement blog post claims, these phone number verification systems are not cheap, but that it will be cheaper when done through Telegram. The specific claim that the company made is that doing to through it would make things “faster, cheaper, more secure and convenient than SMS or other alternatives”.
In a separate page, Telegram breaks the cost down to US$0.01 per user, while stating that SMS verifications can cost up to 50 times more. This page also expands on the speed advantage, stating that SMS have failure rates as high as five percent while also potentially taking several minutes as opposed to being instant like the messaging platform.
Of course, some may debate the point on security with what happened last month. In case you missed it, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced last month that the platform will start turning over user IP addresses and phone numbers if there are legal requests to do so. The argument has been so that it would deter criminals from favouring the platform.
For the average user, the Telegram update also comes with an improved reporting interface, redesigned video chats for iOS, RTMP streams for Android, and gifts. That last one reads a lot like a remnant of NFTs without all the complicated blockchain bits, but you can read more about it by hitting the link below.
(Source: Telegram [1], [2])
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