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Our Favorite All-You-Can-Eat Deals in Cyberspace

Monday, May 15, 2023

Let’s begin with a mea culpa. We’ve been wrong on a few all-you-can-eat deals over the years including the CloudAtCost switcheroo, the Google Voice fiasco, and a few other cloud provider implosions. But our overall track record has been pretty good over the past decade, and today we have some fresh deals that are worth a careful look. We, of course, would encourage everyone to perform their own due diligence and at least acknowledge the cautionary note: "If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Having said that, these are all deals that we continue to use and to rely upon as this is written.

Free Oracle Cloud Hosting for Life

We’ve previously written about the free Oracle Cloud hosting deal so we won’t dwell on it here other than to provide a link that will show you how to sign up and use the Oracle Cloud to host your Incredible PBX servers for life at no cost, up to four of them. Here’s the link.

Domain Names at Cost

There are lots of sources to acquire domain names whether you need one or dozens. But nobody comes close to matching Spaceship pricing across the board. Here are some examples: .com for $8.80/year, .org and .net for $9.80, .us for $6.48, and .uk for $5.23.

VPN Unlimited for Life

Whether you use a VPN for anonymous protection while surfing the web or for access to premium movie services while visiting countries that block some services, a lifetime VPN subscription is a worthy investment. In this case, waiting for the deal to come along is worth a little patience. Our favorite lifetime service is VPN Unlimited which, as recently as November 2021 was selling for $18. Today it’s $199.99. Two weeks ago it was $99. There are numerous VPN for Life services but, if you stray from VPN Unlimited, we would encourage you to sign up for a one month plan to be sure it meets your needs in terms of performance and reliability with services such as Netflix. In the alternative, make frequent visits to LowEndTalk, LowEndSpirit, and StackSocial and await the next deal. It won’t be very long.

Unlimited Music Streaming Services

Perhaps the greatest blessing for parents was the arrival of unlimited streaming music services which all but eliminated the risk of being sued or prosecuted for music piracy. If you have a kid in college, the best deal on the planet is Spotify’s 4-year, $4.99 a month plan which provides access to their entire music catalog as well as a Hulu subscription. While you only get one stream at a time, lucky parents will soon discover that their listening hours rarely conflict with the waking hours of college students.

For Amazon Prime subscribers, Amazon has recently sweetened their music deal with Amazon Music Prime which provides free streaming access to 100 million songs. You can build playlists and so long as you stream them in Shuffle mode, Amazon will play all of your playlist selections before injecting any other content. Quite a deal.

Unlimited Home Internet Service

If you’ve grown weary of Comcast, Spectrum, and WOW regularly moving their pricing goalposts, you’ll be pleased to learn that both T-Mobile and Verizon now offer Home Internet Service with no data caps. We actually use T-Mobile’s offering in two locations so the first costs $30 a month with a Magenta Max cell plan and the second costs $50 a month, still a deal compared to the cable companies. Even in remote areas, we’ve found the download speeds to be quite reasonable at 200+ Mbps. And, with T-Mobile, the price is guaranteed for life. With Verizon and a qualifying cell plan, the monthly cost is $25 a month with a 2-year price guarantee. Both will partially cover early termination fees from your previous cable provider.

Lifetime Cloud Storage Services

We would be the first to warn you that lifetime cloud offerings can be a slippery slope simply because the provider’s monthly costs never go down. So long as their subscription model provides more revenue than their cost of doing business, they will probably stay around. Once the math changes, your investment AND your data goes down the toilet along with the provider. Having said that, we’ve signed up with pCloud which has been in business for a decade and boasts a subscriber base of 16 million users. Their lifetime 2TB Individual Plan provides 2TB of storage and 2TB of monthly download bandwidth for $399. Their 500GB Individual Plan provides 500GB of storage with 500GB of monthly download bandwidth for $199. Both plans include a PUBLIC folder (ours is here) in which you can store files with download links that are accessible anonymously using web browsers, wget, and curl. All of their monthly and lifetime plans include a 10-day money-back guarantee. Rave reviews are available from numerous sources using a Google search for pcloud reviews.

On the other end of the usability spectrum is the first provider we tried, Internxt. We bought their 1TB lifetime offering for €99.00, and it’s no longer available. Instead, they now offer a 2TB lifetime plan for $299 or a 5TB plan for $499. The gotcha with Internxt is their crippled download service. It only supports downloads using a web browser. Wget and curl downloads all fail with their support staff professing surprise or ignoring support requests. Steer clear!

Lifetime Email Hosting for BYO Domains

Email hosting is something that most of us take for granted, either because we have a free service from Google or Microsoft or because our Internet provider provides "free" email accounts. The old adage that you’re being penny-wise and pound-foolish seems particularly appropriate here. Your email service is a key critical component particularly if you’re in business. Our solution and the one we recommend is the MXroute Lifetime Plan for $199. With it, you can host unlimited domains and unlimited email accounts with a storage limit of 10GB and 300 outbound emails per hour. They have awesome tutorials to help you get started.

Originally published: Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

FULL DISCLOSURE: ClearlyIP, Skyetel, Vitelity, DigitalOcean, Vultr, VoIP.ms, 3CX, Sangoma, TelecomsXchange and VitalPBX have provided financial support to Nerd Vittles and our open source projects through advertising, referral revenue, and/or merchandise. As an Amazon Associate and Best Buy Affiliate, we also earn from qualifying purchases. We’ve chosen these providers not the other way around. Our decisions are based upon their corporate reputation and the quality of their offerings and pricing. Our recommendations regarding technology are reached without regard to financial compensation except in situations in which comparable products at comparable pricing are available from multiple sources. In this limited case, we support our sponsors because our sponsors support us.

BOGO Bonaza: Enjoy state-of-the-art VoIP service with a $10 credit and half-price SIP service on up to $500 of Skyetel trunking with free number porting when you fund your Skyetel account. No limits on number of simultaneous calls. Quadruple data center redundancy. $25 monthly minimum spend required. Tutorial and sign up details are here.

The lynchpin of Incredible PBX 2020 and beyond is ClearlyIP components which bring management of FreePBX modules and SIP phone integration to a level never before available with any other Asterisk distribution. And now you can configure and reconfigure your new Incredible PBX phones from the convenience of the Incredible PBX GUI.

VitalPBX is perhaps the fastest-growing PBX offering based upon Asterisk with an installed presence in more than 100 countries worldwide. VitalPBX has generously provided a customized White Label version of Incredible PBX tailored for use with all Incredible PBX and VitalPBX custom applications. Follow this link for a free test drive!

Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.

2023 Mobile Telephony: Fresh, New Ways to Skin a Cat

Thursday, February 16, 2023

We’ve covered many interesting mobile telephony solutions over the years including our most recent experience with Visible. But, as has been true with the Bell Sisters for decades, Verizon has continued to move the goal posts with Visible. The bottom line is the cost of Visible service is now virtually identical to the cost of Verizon. So today we’re putting on our creativity hat to consider some other options.

For those in the United States that pay a monthly fee to Comcast for Internet service, we’ve got some terrific news. As you probably know, Xfinity WiFi offers millions of free WiFi hotspots to all Comcast customers. You’d be hard pressed to find a metropolitan area or residential community where an Xfinity WiFi hotspot is not available. For mobile service, what you really need in these areas is a phone number and little else.

If you happen to have an existing Google Voice number, both Android and iOS devices offer a Voice app that lets you make free calls and send free messages using Google Voice. One drawback of Google Voice is you need an existing phone number to qualify for a new Google Voice number so this is a bit like the chicken and the egg dilemma.

Today, we have a $6 a month solution that kills two birds with one stone. You not only get a cellular number on one of America’s best cellular networks, but you also get a small bucket of calling minutes and data to tide you over as you move between WiFi hotspots. Using our referral link with Tello, you and Nerd Vittles both get $10 of free service, ample time to let you kick the tires and see whether this solution can meet either some or all of your cellular needs. There are no contracts so your experiment is purely on a month-to-month basis.

The silver lining is that, while you have your assigned Tello number in an area code of your choice, you also can sign up for a free Google Voice number and add it to your cellphone and desktop phone as well. And, if you drop Tello after your $10 credit runs out, you still will have your new Google Voice number for unlimited calling and texting in the U.S. and Canada. What’s not to like? And here’s the free calling map while you’re with Tello:

Tello’s $6 plan gives you 100 minutes of calls per month plus a 500MB data allowance. And, after exhausting your 500MB of data, you still get unlimited 2G data service which is more than ample for email. Tello also supports eSIMs, a mobile hotspot, free unlimited text messaging, and WiFi calling that lets you conserve your data bucket for emergencies. You also get calling support to 60+ countries. You can bump up the high speed data allowance to 1GB for an extra dollar a month, or you can add unlimited calling for just $3 more per month. In short, their $10 a month plan offers unlimited calling to 60+ countries, plus unlimited texting, and a gigabyte of high speed data every month. Coupling that with XFinity’s millions of hotspots would make this an ideal solution for almost every teenager.

Give it a try. The first month is on us.

Originally published: Thursday, February 16, 2023

Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.

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Happy Fourth: Our Gift to You — 17+ Years of Nerd Vittles

Monday, July 4, 2022 / 5 Comments on Happy Fourth: Our Gift to You — 17+ Years of Nerd Vittles

Originally published: Monday, July 4, 2022

Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

Deal of the Year: OBi2182 Color WiFi Phones now $59.99

Monday, May 9, 2022 / 1 Comment on Deal of the Year: OBi2182 Color WiFi Phones now $59.99

One year and counting… If you still have some Google Voice numbers lying around or if you’d like to join the party a little late, now is your second chance. Amazon now is selling the OBi2182 phones to U.S. residents with native Google Voice as well as WiFi, Bluetooth, HD Voice, speakerphone, and a power adapter currently selling for $69.99. Hold, transfer, and conferencing support are included in the phone. Here’s our Amazon referral link to keep the lights on.

We were big fans of OBiHai once upon a time. But then they sold out to Polycom. And they subsequently sold out to Plantronics. And support went from bad to worse along the way. But things appear to have stabilized so this offering may just be one of the best deals on the planet. Not only do you get unlimited free calling throughout the U.S., Canada, and Ukraine but you also get some of the best pricing ever on most international calls. While we no longer have any dealings with ObiHai, Polycom, or Plantronics, we know many of our followers were left high and dry when Google pulled the plug on Google Voice for Asterisk®. Here’s a tip.

Adding one or more of these phones makes a perfect supplement to your Asterisk platform making it easy to add free calling to your home or home office PBX. And it’s not too late to order a Google Voice number if you’re new to the game. Configuring a SIP or PJsip connection as well as Bluetooth connectivity to your cellphone is just as simple as adding Google Voice trunks using the OBiTalk web interface shown below. Trunk setups take less than a minute apiece. The phone supports 12 lines. And WiFi calls are crystal-clear thanks to HD Voice.

Grab an OBi2182 while you still can! An Admin Guide to the OBi2182 is available here.

Originally published: Monday, May 9, 2022

Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

Deploying a Non-Google SMTP RelayHost with Asterisk

Thursday, March 17, 2022 / 7 Comments on Deploying a Non-Google SMTP RelayHost with Asterisk

This will not be the sexiest column you read this year, but it may be the most important. You need a reliable way for your VoIP-based PBX to deliver emails to you and your users when incoming voicemails arrive and when your server has problems. At least for Incredible PBX® platforms, we thought we had this solved with our Gmail Smarthost solution. But, alas, Google continues to move the goal posts and has announced that it will discontinue support for so-called "Less Secure Apps" on May 30, 2022. After watching Google blow up one of their apps after another over the years, you’d think we’d learn. But the ease of use and (free) pricing of Google offerings continues to entice until… another one bites the dust.

Why Do You Need a RelayHost? Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) block downstream mail servers from sending email to reduce spam. If you have a PBX sitting behind a Comcast cable modem and you don’t have a business account, that would be you.

What Is a RelayHost? A RelayHost is an intermediate mail provider that provides last mile delivery of your server’s outbound email without your having to worry about the intricacies of setting up and properly configuring an SMTP gateway. Instead, your server pushes your outbound email messages to the smarthost using your credentials and leaves the rest of the delivery task to the RelayHost.

Choosing a RelayHost. Lucky for all of us, there are many RelayHost providers from which to choose. Most offer a free tier with 100 or more daily emails. For most PBXs, that is more than ample without spending a dime. If your server pushes out more than 100 emails a day, then there are commercial tiers of service available from these same providers. Here are some of the favorites recommended by our users: Twilio’s SendGrid, Mailjet, SendInBlue, and our own free MXroute offering. We would prefer you use our service as a last resort if you can’t get any of the other free offerings to work. We’ll show you how to set up Twilio’s SendGrid as a RelayHost to get you started.

Configuring a RelayHost with Incredible PBX. There’s good news and bad news. While all of these solutions offer a free tier, the setup process with some of these services can be a bear. We’ve attempted to take the pain out of this by walking you through the setup steps. For openers, configuring SendMail as an SMTP Smarthost is not for mere mortals so we’ll first migrate your PBX to Postfix to simplify the setup procedure. Here is a quick list of the tasks:

Migrate Your PBX from SendMail to Postfix
Obtain an Account with SmartHost Provider
Configure Postfix Email Relay Using SmartHost Provider
Test Outbound Mail

Migrating Incredible PBX 2022 to Postfix. Our new Incredible PBX 2022 build for Rocky 8 comes with both SendMail and Postfix preinstalled. So it’s simple to switch gears. Here are the commands:

systemctl stop sendmail
systemctl disable sendmail
systemctl start postfix
systemctl enable postfix
sed -i 's|-c sendmail|-c postfix|' /usr/local/sbin/pbxstatus
sed -i 's|SendMail| Postfix|' /usr/local/sbin/pbxstatus
systemctl status postfix

Migrating Incredible PBX 2021 to Postfix. By default, Incredible PBX 2021 servers do not include Postfix. So here are the steps to install Postfix and remove SendMail. These steps also apply to all releases of Incredible PBX on the Raspbian platform.

apt-get update
apt-get install postfix sasl2-bin -y
# choose No Configuration option when prompted in:
# dpkg-reconfigure postfix
systemctl stop sendmail
systemctl disable sendmail
systemctl start postfix
systemctl enable postfix
sed -i 's|-c sendmail|-c postfix|' /usr/local/sbin/pbxstatus
echo "incrediblepbx.com" > /etc/mailname
sed -i 's|SendMail| Postfix|' /usr/local/sbin/pbxstatus
systemctl status postfix

Creating a Free SendGrid Account. Begin by navigating to the SendGrid Start for Free link. Enter your Email Address and a 16-character password of your choice. Accept the Terms of Service and click Create Account. Fill in the Personal Information and click Get Started. Create a Single Sender Identity. Confirm receipt of the verification email. You can skip enabling Two-Factor Authentication if desired. Next, open the Email API tab and click Integration Guide. Choose SMTP Relay and create an APIKEY. Copy the generated APIKEY to a safe place. It cannot be deciphered again!

Now edit /etc/postfix/main.cf and add the following entries to the bottom of the file:

smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_sasl_tls_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_tls_security_level = encrypt
header_size_limit = 4096000
relayhost = [smtp.sendgrid.net]:587

Then create /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd and enter the following, replacing YOUR-APIKEY with your actual key from above:

[smtp.sendgrid.net]:587 apikey:YOUR-APIKEY

Complete the setup by issuing the following commands:

chmod 600 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
systemctl restart postfix
systemctl status postfix

IMPORTANT NOTE: With SendGrid, the email address you entered for your Single Sender Identity must match the FROM: address on every outbound email message sent from your server. We’ll need to adjust the FROM: address in FreePBX before any voicemail emails can be successfully sent. Also, if you send emails from the command line, the syntax must be as shown here with your sender@yourdomain.com matching what was entered as your Sender Identity email address.

echo "test" | mail -r sender@yourdomain.com -s testmessage recipient@somedomain.com

At least with Gmail recipients, they may also see the following with messages from your PBX until they click Looks Safe:

Finally, be sure to adjust the FROM address for outbound voicemail messages in the FreePBX GUI. Login as admin and enter your Sender Identity Email Address in the Server Email field in Settings -> Voicemail Admin -> Settings -> Email Config.

You can check for errors by reviewing the Postfix mail log: tail /var/log/mail.log.

UPDATE: Setup scripts for Debian 10 and Rocky 8 can be downloaded here.

Originally published: Thursday, March 17, 2022

Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.

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Is SIP Trunking Safe & Reliable in the DDoS World?

Monday, September 20, 2021

Since last Thursday when VoIP.ms suffered (and continues to suffer) one of the worst Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks in the VoIP era, we’ve been asked a thousand times whether any SIP trunking provider can provide a safe and reliable platform under circumstances similar to the VoIP.ms outage. We obviously cannot vouch for every trunking provider but, based upon our discussions with two of the major carriers that support Incredible PBX, we are confident that either of them could withstand a similar attack and your phones would still ring. Keep in mind that one of the hidden beauties of VoIP is the ability to configure your PBX to use multiple carriers for failover in making outbound calls, something we have always recommended. Unfortunately, inbound calls are tied to registration of each DID with one and only one carrier. Thus, if that carrier goes off line, incoming calls to DIDs registered with that carrier will fail.

To restate the obvious, no provider is going to publicly document their DDOS remediation methodology thereby providing attackers with a blueprint to their network design and remediation strategy. However, under non-disclosure agreements, we have spoken at length with the owners of our two major Incredible PBX providers: Skyetel and Clearly IP. Based upon our NDA discussions over the past few days, we are satisfied that the SIP trunking offerings of our two primary carriers are sufficiently robust to withstand a VoIP.ms-like DDOS attack. Having said that, we are optimistic that the VoIP.ms outage has placed a renewed spotlight on the seriousness of these DDOS attacks with the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

So what’s missing from the VoIP.ms design that has made their infrastructure so vulnerable? Lots. For openers, VoIP.ms apparently does not rely upon SIP proxies or firewalls using industry-standard network management procedures. In fact, until several days ago, VoIP.ms reportedly was hosting its own DNS servers exclusively. While that has been addressed by moving to Cloudflare, other design vulnerabilities have been more difficult to ameliorate. For example, SIP trunking with VoIP.ms by design requires registration to one of several dozen POPs on both your PBX and on their public-facing portal. An inability to access their public portal means an administrator cannot redirect traffic to another POP in case of an outage. And, if an individual POP is overwhelmed with a DDOS attack, that POP can no longer redirect its incoming calls to a failover location. And apparently it is the only server from which this redirection can be initiated. As the current five-day outage makes clear, reengineering this design would be a Herculean task. So an important lesson learned should be that FORWARDING DIDS TO ANOTHER NUMBER OR SIP ADDRESS SHOULD BE COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF YOUR PUBLIC-FACING ARCHITECTURE.

What can you do at this juncture to lessen your vulnerability to a future DDOS attack? First, don’t put all of your eggs in one carrier’s basket. This is especially true with your main phone numbers (DIDs). Second, if you are a major organization, move your most important DIDs to one of our preferred providers, Skyetel or ClearlyIP. And, if money is no object, consider an AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or Google Voice trunk. With multi-path forwarding, simultaneous incoming calls can be redirected to other DIDs hosted with SIP trunking providers. These paths can easily be adjusted in the event of a DDOS attack. Many of these providers offer heavily discounted rates for forwarding calls to other SIP destinations which need not be publicly disclosed.

Latest VoIP.ms Update:

Originally published: Monday, September 20, 2021

Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.

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DEAL OF THE DAY: OBi2182 Color WiFi Phones now $69.98

Saturday, September 4, 2021 / 6 Comments on DEAL OF THE DAY: OBi2182 Color WiFi Phones now $69.98

These won’t last long but, if you still have some Google Voice numbers lying around unused and you live in the United States, you’d better jump on this one. Amazon is selling the OBi2182 phones with Google Voice, WiFi and power adapter for $69.98. Here’s the link.

We were big fans of OBiHai once upon a time. But then they sold out to Polycom. And they subsequently sold out to Plantronics. And support has gone from bad to worse along the way. But if you like free calling in the U.S. and Canada and have the patience of Job, today’s deal may just be your cup of tea. Just don’t come crying to us when things go wrong. We no longer have any dealings with ObiHai, Polycom, or Plantronics. But we know many of our followers were left high and dry when Google pulled the plug on Google Voice. And today’s deal is an easy way to reactivate free calling in your home or home office. Admin Guide available here.

UPDATE: While the price has fluctuated a bit, these phones are still a good buy. We’ve received and configured one with four Google Voice trunks and free calling in the U.S. and Canada as well as two SIP trunks and a Bluetooth connection to an iPhone so it’s well worth $69.98 for those in the U.S.

Originally published: Saturday, April 10, 2021 Updated: Friday, November 19, 2021

Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.

Special Thanks to Our Generous Sponsors

The Ultimate Android Phone: Just $99 if you hurry

Tuesday, October 6, 2020

If you follow Nerd Vittles, you already know all of the benefits of using an Android phone in the VoIP-centric world. You can make free calls without a cellular provider by connecting to any WiFi network with Android’s Google Voice app. You can connect to Incredible PBX® or any Asterisk® PBX and function as if you were sitting at your desk in your Covid-free office. You can join a virtual private network using OpenVPN without spending a dime. And you can play an endless collection of games for almost nothing.

Now there’s more. Suppose there was a recyclable Android phone with a replaceable battery that could be repaired or replaced even with a cracked screen for just $59 including free shipping in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, and Singapore. Suppose it came with a 4-year warranty and 3 full years of free Android updates plus Google Play Store support. Suppose it included NFC Google Pay compatibility, dual SIM support, USB-C charging, and a microSD slot for expansion. Did we mention an Octa Core processor, dual cameras, a 6.1″ HD+ display, and a headphone jack? Meet the Teracube 2e.

The icing on the cake is you can snag one of these babies for $99 if you hurry. Here’s the link.

Originally published: Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.

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