Firebase Phone Number Verification Adds 10 Carriers, Six on Vodafone

Firebase Phone Number Verification now works on 10 more carrier networks, bringing Vodafone’s service in Germany, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Romania and the United Kingdom onto a product that replaces SMS one-time codes (Firebase Blog, Sept. 28, 2026).

What was added

Micah Baker, a Firebase senior product manager, listed the new networks: Tune Talk and U Mobile in Malaysia, MasOrange in Spain, PTML in Pakistan, and Vodafone in the six countries above. They join Orange in France, DNA in Finland, Telkomsel in Indonesia, CelcomDigi in Malaysia, Movistar in Spain and nine German networks, among them Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica O2.

Firebase describes the product as the third generation of number verification, after SMS and Silent Network Authentication. No code is sent. The user taps to consent. The carrier returns the number to the app. Baker’s post says it works in airplane mode or with mobile data off, provided the device has some internet connection.

A SIM-less test mode needs no billing account. Baker said a test token takes about one minute to set up. It uses the same methods as production. Going live means removing one line.

What it costs

The post doesn’t state pricing. Firebase’s pricing page, last updated Oct. 6, does. Charges apply only when a phone number is successfully returned to the app. Production use requires a billing account. Per-verification prices at the first tier (up to 99,999 a month) range from $0.0312 in Spain to $0.1080 in Indonesia and Pakistan. Germany is $0.0875 and Great Britain $0.0456. Volume tiers at 100,000 and 1 million verifications trim those rates by roughly 3% to 7%. Usage is tiered per region at month’s end.

Johanna Wood, Vodafone’s director of network APIs, said the launch makes “trusted carrier-based authentication available across six Vodafone markets.” U Mobile’s chief business officer, How Lih Ren, said the company is working with Telenor Linx to help developers “move beyond traditional SMS OTPs.”

Firerun’s take

Coverage is the limit. The list is mostly European plus a few Asian networks. A user on an unlisted carrier can’t verify. An app serving the United States or India still needs SMS as a fallback. Treat this as an upgrade path for the markets it covers, not a replacement for Firebase Auth’s phone sign-in.

The pricing page matters more than the announcement. Rates run from about 3 cents to 11 cents per success. Check your country mix before switching.