Google=Bullshit!

[SJ]

According to Google - you must now have a cell phone in order to get a new email account... something about anti spam. (yet spammers can create email accounts a million other places and still spam ur google account )

On top of that - they send you a text message. So if your cell providers are a bunch of crooks and charge you for incoming messages you will get charged. And of course the massage to verify back to google will cost you money

tl;dr Google is Bullshit!

I don't have a mobile phone, can I sign up? If you'd like to sign up for a Gmail address, you need to have a mobile phone that has text-messaging capabilities.
If you don't have a phone, you may want to ask a friend if you can use his or her number to receive a code.
One of the reasons we're offering this new way to sign up for Gmail is to help protect our users and combat abuse. Spam and abuse protection are two things we take very seriously, and our users have been very happy with the small amount of spam they've received in Gmail. We take many measures to ensure that spammers have a difficult time sending their spam messages, getting these messages delivered, or even obtaining a Gmail address (spammers will often use many different addresses to send spam). Sending invitation codes to mobile phones is one way to address this, as the number of addresses created per phone number can be limited.
Will it cost me money to receive the message? We suggest contacting your mobile phone provider for details on costs associated with text messaging. These costs vary, depending on your wireless plan and provider.