Yes. Per the requirement in the OP (receive a link via SMS), that will be a stumbling block. However I am as much thinking of, say, the Microsoft Authenticator app, which does not (apparently) send or receive SMSs and which communicates on the internet (if at all). Seems to use “notifications”, whatever they are, when I use it on my iPhone - although it does also (not useful to me) support TOTP (seemingly).
Same or similar with the government authentication app.
In any case, it may be that if the OP had a virtual phone on which to run the telco’s damn app then he wouldn’t need to receive a link via SMS or maybe only as a one-off where he could use someone else’s phone temporarily to get past activation. Maybe?
