I don't understand. I've been using telegram for some years. Could you explain how you would go about using telegram without "signing up"? And by "a number" I understand it to be an option of "not your phone number"? How does the verification go then?
I think from the reply that they're talking about "Your contacts do not need your phone number, they can message you with just your telegram screen name", but this is different from "Telegram needs your phone number" and "People with your phone number can find your Telegram account from their contacts".
