1) Ban SMS as a second factor for high risk targets like banks.
2) Telecom companies should require social security number or uniquely identifying information to provide account access.
3) ???
As others have pointed out, if it were just a second factor they would also need your password. SMS is being used for full account recovery, so as a single factor.
> 2) Telecom companies should require social security number
This is exactly what we should not be doing. I would like it to be harder to steal my identity than getting a 9-digit number, which can never be rotated, and which I am required to provide in plaintext to many different people in many different situations (renting an apartment, opening a credit card, etc.).
To make matters even worse, up to the first 5 digits of an SSN can be easily guessed if you know the person's age and birthplace, and the last 4 digits are used even more haphazardly than the entire number is (e.g. sometimes the last 4 are displayed in plaintext on a website while the first 5 are starred out).