It's true in the USA if you stick to the big providers... Ring up t-mobile and say 'I'd like a line with 0 minutes and 0 GB of data, just to receive verification texts for Twitter' and they'll probably quote you $200 a year or so...
Tracphone is the company you want for this sort of thing. A SIM costs $0.99 (requires unlocked phone of course) and you add $15 to the account to get 500 texts. (I think you can do this with cash at a place like Walmart.)
It is expensive if you need to keep the plan around, but Twitter doesn't seem to regularly send SMSes to the phone number, so you probably don't need to pay beyond the first month.
Why the arbitrary limitation to the “big providers” - you can get a basic Tello plan with SIM for $5/month prepaid - and they’re a T-mobile MVNO so it’s a T-Mobile number.
