I don’t know how slow the old one was, but if I send myself an SMS using the bridge it completes a round trip to the Telco and back in about 1 second

Have you tried the new SMS bridge that relies on gmessages?

https://github.com/mautrix/gmessages

If you have an Android phone you can use the Google SMS app:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.messaging

Then you pair the app and bridge. It’s been pretty reliable since I started using this bridge, especially when compared to the previous bridge options.

I have a FreePBX virtual machine hosted at home. I use VoIP.ms which covers most North American numbers and many numbers abroad. I use it to provide phone service to my parents house and cottage and my house and cottage. I put in about $40 a year to cover all these places with their own DID number.