receiving SMS in US

I can only tell you what worked for me. It’s not a sim card solution. I put my Indian sim card in an iPhone which was left in India and all my other Apple devices were set to receive iMessage. And my OTPs came in almost real time on my Macbook and iPad. My mom charged the iPhone SE 1st gen once every 2 days. It worked flawlessly for years. I recharged the connection in time to avoid any disconnection. However, FaceTime doesn’t work this way, so you won’t get your Mac to ring in the USA when your phone is in India.

i know now Android have a messages.google.com/web portal so it should work with your Android phone as well as long as you don’t lose cookies and get signed off and your messaging app on the Android phone is Google’s own messaging app. Other Android specific solution is TeamViewer (or Anydesk) to your Android phone. This is what I did before iMessage solution.

Additional unrelated suggestion(s):

1 don’t get a Matrix/Uniconnect or other travel sim card at an exorbitant price before travel. You can get a local AT&T/TMobile/Verizon prepaid sim card from vending machines in any US airport.

2 Install Google voice once in the USA and get a free US number from Google which will require a real US number. Use Google voice number for every purchase, SSN, State ID/Driving License etc. This Google number will forward your call and message to your actual number when you are in the US and it will be valid for years after you leave the USA and you’d still get all messages and calls to this number sitting anywhere in the world as long as you let Google voice notify you (or else it will go to voice mail).

3 buy credits to Google voice if you want to call Indian number or anywhere else in the world, they have the lowest rate for any phone connection. My parents didn’t use WhatsApp or may be they did but didn’t have a lot of cheap data (unlike now) so i needed to ring their phones. Google voice India calls are 0.01 usd (1 cent = 70 paise) per minute. At that point, my mom in Kolkata paid more to call my father 10 km away for his job than me, 7757 miles (12484 kms) away. Same with calling London, Google voice was the cheapest. Rates can be found here:

https://voice.google.com...es

take any prepaid Jio/Airtel/Vi

With Jio you just have to activate International Roaming 1s by recharging with ISD pack ..once done you continue to use Jio services overseas without any issues. Just keep your number active with regular recharges and do some talktime top ups that way you even constinue to receive Incomings (upto you if you want to pick it or not)

How long you plan to stay in US? 

Short duration : Prepaid – You do get SMS when you out of india, Calls you won’t get. If you want calls use the ~1100 recharge you get a good talktime

Long duration : Postpaid : Use the 200 rs per month plan of jio and it has PayAs you Go option for calls and internet. 

remember to activate before you leave India 

I have experience with VI, so I can vouch for that. Banking, Aadhar, and amazon SMS were coming to the States. 

It was running on regular validity recharge, even sometimes I forgot to extend the recharge, but still no issues mobile holder faced.