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The Most Versatile VoIP Provider: FREE PORTING
JUST RELEASED: Visit the Incredible PBX WikiWhat A Steal: Host Unlimited Email Domains for Life
In these inflationary times, it’s always refreshing to find a technology solution that has actually decreased in price. To combat spam, hosting providers including Comcast and Spectrum have made it next to impossible to deploy a downstream mail server. So a relay hosting solution has become a must-have for VoIP server platforms including Incredible PBX. We’re thrilled to introduce MXroute’s $129 lifetime, cloud-based email hosting solution which supports unlimited domains, unlimited email addresses, and 10GB of storage. But you better hurry. This special won’t last long.
To get started with MXroute, you’ll want to spend some time in their tutorials making sure that you’ve properly configured DNS for the email domains you wish to host on MXroute. Pay particular attention to resolving DMARC, DKIM, and SPF issues before you go live. MXroute’s DNS support documentation is second to none.
For our part, we’ll show you how to configure Incredible PBX 2027 with Debian 11 or Ubuntu 22.04 to use MXroute as your email relay host so that email messages leave your server and arrive at their intended destinations without a hiccup or a SPAM flag. By default, Incredible PBX 2027-D and 2027-U servers are shipped with SendMail preconfigured and an enable-gmail-smarthost-for-sendmail script. Running the script assures proper delivery of outbound email so long as you use an existing Gmail account with a generated App password. But many prefer to cut the cord to Google and host their own email accounts, and that’s where we begin today.
To get started, sign up for an MXroute Unlimited Account. With your credentials in hand, log into the DirectAdmin web portal. Create your first email domain in Account Manager -> Domain Setup. Next, drop down to Email Manager -> Email Accounts and create an email account for the domain you created. Make note of the account password you use because you can’t retrieve it after you leave the creation step. You’ll see an arrow beside the newly created email account. It will take you to a functioning, web-based email client without having to enter your email account’s password. This email client can be used to send out test messages after you get the DNS settings for your domain squared away. Don’t continue with the Incredible PBX server setup below until you can successfully send and deliver a message from within the web-based email client with at least DKIM and SPF showing as PASSED in the original message listing for the delivered email message.
Incredible PBX Using MXroute As Smart Relayhost
What follows has been tested on Incredible PBX 2027 platforms deployed with Debian 11 or Ubuntu 22.04. It will not work with RedHat, CentOS, or Rocky 8 platforms which we no longer support. See this post for RedHat tips. Configuring your server to use MXroute as a smart relay host is a two-step process. First, we’ll replace SendMail with Postfix. And then we’ll set up MXroute as your email relay to avoid issues sending email from servers downstream from your Internet Service Provider, a.k.a. Comcast or Spectrum among others.
Replacing SendMail with Postfix on Incredible PBX
Begin by logging into your Incredible PBX server as root. Then issue the following commands:
systemctl stop sendmail systemctl disable sendmail apt-get update apt-get install postfix sasl2-bin libsasl2-modules -y dpkg-reconfigure postfix # choose NO Configuration option 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
Deploying MXroute with Postfix
You’ll need three pieces of information to deploy MXroute as a smart relayhost with Incredible PBX: the name of your MXroute server (e.g. friday.mxrouting.net) and both the email address and password of an active account on MXroute (e.g. myname@mydomain.com & mypassword).
With these in hand, edit and save /etc/postfix/main.cf after adding the following to the bottom of the file using your actual MXroute server name in the first line. Leave the brackets in place.
relayhost = [friday.mxrouting.net]:587 smtp_use_tls = yes smtp_tls_security_level = encrypt smtp_sasl_tls_security_options = noanonymous smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt header_size_limit = 4096000
Next, create an /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd file with your three credentials:
[friday.mxrouting.net]:587 myname@mydomain.com:mypassword
Finally, issue the following commands to complete the setup:
chmod 600 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd postmap /etc/postfix postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd systemctl restart postfix systemctl status postfix
Testing Email with MXroute and Postfix
As a security precaution, you can only send emails through MXroute using the email address registered with Postfix as your Reply-TO address. From the command line, your outbound email should look like this:
echo "test" | mail -r myname@mydomain.com -s testmsg somebody@somewhere.com
Also 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.
Originally published: Monday, September 25, 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.
Introducing Incredible PBX 2027 for LXC Linux Containers
We introduced Zorin OS in our recent review of the latest Acer Aspire 5 notebook PC. If you’ve never heard of Zorin, it’s probably the best desktop operating system available. While it is Linux-based, it can look like any desktop you’re already familiar with including Windows 11 and even a Mac if you spring for the $39 Pro version. It can be installed on as many PCs as you personally own, and Zorin Pro provides an incredible assortment of apps including the full LibreOffice suite, VirtualBox, music apps including Clementine, video streaming with VLC Media Player, Gnome’s Gmail, Firefox, and a number of free photo editing tools. In short, any app that will run under Ubuntu will run under Zorin. If you’re a diehard OpenVPN fan like us, it works swimmingly under Zorin and is a breeze to install.
After walking you through a Zorin install, we want to introduce you to a new Linux virtualization solution called LXC Linux Containers. It offers many of the same features you’d find in the OpenVZ cloud platform including shared kernel access and almost instantaneous startups. On the Zorin platform, it’s a one-minute setup procedure. We’ve even built Incredible PBX 2027 LXC images for both Debian 11 and Ubuntu 22.04 servers so you can bring up one or more full-featured unified communications platforms in a matter of minutes.
Preparing Zorin 16 Installation Media
Prepare a USB stick after downloading the Zorin 16 ISO of your choice. The easiest method is to download and install balenaEtcher on your desktop machine. It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Insert your USB stick into your desktop computer and then run the balenaEtcher app. Choose your Zorin ISO after clicking Flash from File. Choose your USB stick from Select Target. Be sure you don’t accidentally choose your desktop’s main drive! Click the Flash button to begin. Once the ISO is transferred, gracefully eject your USB stick from your desktop machine.
Configuring Windows 11 for Dual-Boot
We won’t bore you with a tutorial on setting up Windows 11. It works much the same way on almost any modern computer. Once you get Windows 11 installed, the only change we need to make is to shrink the main Windows partition so that there is some room to install and use Zorin. For Lenovo and HP machines, don’t waste your time trying to get Zorin installed. It won’t. For other machines, from the Windows desktop, tap the Windows key and Search for “Create and format hard disk partitions”. Highlight your main Windows drive, usually called “OS (C:)”. Control-tap on the Touchpad or Right-Click your mouse in that partition and select “Shrink Volume”. Choose the amount of space to shrink the Windows partition and allocate to Zorin. We chose 250GB, but that’s your call. Reboot your machine for the changes to take effect. When the boot logo appears, press F2 repeatedly to enter the BIOS setup. Click on the Security tab and set a Supervisor Password. No other changes are necessary. If you can disable UEFI do so, but it’s not required. In the boot options, specify your USB drive as the primary boot source so we can install Zorin from a USB stick. Move to the Exit tab and choose Exit and Save Changes to initiate a reboot.
Installing Zorin 16 on a Desktop PC
Now we’re ready to install Zorin on your desktop machine. Insert the USB stick and turn on or reboot the computer. If the machine doesn’t boot Zorin from the USB stick, you may need to make the USB port your primary boot device in the BIOS settings. Choose the LIVE Session option to make sure Zorin will start on your machine. Also make sure you can configure WiFi in the Settings -> Network tab. If all goes well, click the Install Zorin link on the desktop to install Zorin onto your empty partition when prompted. Upon reboot, if UEFI is enabled, be sure to register Zorin in the UEFI whitelist when prompted. In some BIOS configurations, you may need to set NVME:ubuntu as Primary in the Boot setup’s Drive Priorities after installing Zorin. This was the case on our favorite MiniPC desktop, the MINISFORUM Venus Series NAB6 Mini PC (shown below). Now reboot and choose Zorin from the dual-boot menu.
One final tip. If you’ve activated OpenVPN on your Zorin 16 machine, all of the LXC Containers can connect to other OpenVPN servers without the need to install an OpenVPN client on each of the LXC Containers.
Setting Up LXC Containers on a Linux Desktop
1. After loading Zorin, drop down to the Terminal window from the desktop. If you haven’t previously configured the root user account, issue the following commands:
#Set up a very secure root password sudo passwd root # Login as root with your root password su root
2. Install the LXC Linux Container components:
su root apt install lxc lxc-templates lxctl lxc-checkconfig
3. Download, install, and configure an IncrediblePBX2027-U LXC container (3GB):
su root cd / wget https://filedn.com/lBgbGypMOdDm8PWOoOiBR7j/IncrediblePBX2027-LinuxContainers/iPBX2027U.tar.gz tar zxvf iPBX2027U.tar.gz lxc-start -n IncrediblePBX2027-U lxc-attach -n IncrediblePBX2027-U /etc/profile.d/helloworld.sh reboot su root cd ~ pbxstatus ./update-IncrediblePBX passwd root ./admin-pw-change ./apache-pw-change ./timezone-setup
4. Download, install, and configure an IncrediblePBX2027-D LXC container (3GB):
su root cd / wget https://filedn.com/lBgbGypMOdDm8PWOoOiBR7j/IncrediblePBX2027-LinuxContainers/iPBX2027D.tar.gz tar zxvf iPBX2027D.tar.gz lxc-start -n IncrediblePBX2027-D lxc-attach -n IncrediblePBX2027-D /etc/profile.d/helloworld.sh reboot su root cd ~ pbxstatus ./update-IncrediblePBX passwd root ./admin-pw-change ./apache-pw-change ./timezone-setup
5. Every time you start or restart the container, be sure to issue these commands:
iptables-restart fwconsole restart /root/update-IncrediblePBX pbxstatus
Mastering LXC Container Commands
Here’s a quick list of the main LXC Container commands together with examples:
Switch to root user to begin or add sudo prefix to every command!
1. List LXC Containers: lxc-ls
2. Start LXC Container: lxc-start -n IncrediblePBX2027-D
3. Information about LXC Container: lxc-info -n IncrediblePBX2027-D
4. Activate Console for LXC Container: lxc-attach -n IncrediblePBX2027-D
5. Duplicate/clone an LXC Container: lxc-copy OrigContainer -N NewContainer
6. Stop an LXC Container: halt | lxc-stop -n IncrediblePBX2027-U
7. Create Debian 11 image: lxc-create -t download -n DEBIAN11 — -d debian -r bullseye -a amd64
8. Delete/Destroy an LXC Container: lxc-destroy -n IncrediblePBX2027-D
Originally published: Monday, September 11, 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.
Meet the $500 Multi-Purpose Powerhouse: The Acer Aspire 5
We review lots of hardware and numerous operating systems, but none come close to this steal from Amazon for under $500. The Acer Aspire 5 comes in many flavors at many price points. But, if loads of RAM (20GB) and a huge storage capacity (1TB NVMe SSD) top your list of must-haves, nothing we’ve found can touch this deal. The rest of its pedigree is equally impressive: a Ryzen 3 3350U 4-core processor (up to 3.5GHz), backlit keyboard, fingerprint reader for one-touch logins, Amazon Alexa, and Windows 11. As most of you know, our Amazon referral links provide funding to keep the lights on at Nerd Vittles, but none of our recommendations are based upon referral revenue. We eat our own dog food so these are products that we not only test but actually use.
The surprises don’t stop with this hardware discovery. Despite having read a number of articles decrying the lack of Linux support with Acer’s Aspire 5, we found quite the opposite. By setting up a dual-boot configuration, we were able to easily load our absolute favorite desktop Linux distribution, Zorin OS 16. Zorin comes in several flavors: a free offering, a School edition, and a $39 Pro version that can be installed on as many non-business computers as you own. For businesses, you can afford a license for each machine. For schools, there is no charge for the super-charged education edition. We opted for Zorin Pro whose desktop can emulate eight different desktop favorites including Ubuntu, Windows, and Mac. Here are our favorites:
Our project today is to walk you through setting up a dual-boot machine where you can elect to run Windows 11 or Zorin 16 when you startup your machine. Why have two operating systems? The primary reason is you get the best of both worlds. All of the traditional Windows 11 applications will run without a hiccup. And Zorin Pro provides an incredible assortment of apps including the full LibreOffice suite, VirtualBox, music apps including Clementine, video streaming with VLC Media Player, Gnome’s Gmail, Firefox, and a number of free photo editing tools. In short, all apps that will run under Ubuntu will run under Zorin. If you’re a diehard OpenVPN fan like us, it works swimmingly under both operating systems.
Configuring Acer Aspire 5 for Dual-Boot
We won’t bore you with a tutorial on setting up Windows 11 on the Acer Aspire 5. It works much the same way as it does on any other modern computer. Once you get Windows 11 installed, the only change we need to make is to shrink the main Windows partition so that there is some room to install and use Zorin. From the Windows desktop, tap the Windows key and Search for “Create and format hard disk partitions”. Highlight your main Windows drive, usually called “OS (C:)”. Control-tap on the Touchpad in that partition and select “Shrink Volume”. Choose the amount of space to shrink the Windows partition and allocate to Zorin. We chose 250GB, but that’s your call. Reboot your machine for the changes to take effect. When the boot logo appears, press F2 repeatedly to enter the BIOS setup. Click on the Security tab and set a Supervisor Password. No other changes are necessary. Move to the Exit tab and choose Exit and Save Changes to initiate a reboot.
Preparing Zorin 16 Installation Media
Prepare a USB stick after downloading the Zorin 16 ISO of your choice. The easiest method is to download and install balenaEtcher on your desktop machine. It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Insert your USB stick into your desktop computer and then run the balenaEtcher app. Choose your Zorin ISO after clicking Flash from File. Choose your USB stick from Select Target. Be sure you don’t accidentally choose your desktop’s main drive! Click the Flash button to begin. Once the ISO is transferred, gracefully eject your USB stick from your desktop machine.
Installing Zorin 16 on Acer Aspire 5
Now we’re ready to install Zorin on your Aspire 5. Insert the USB stick and turn on or reboot the computer. The machine will boot Zorin from the USB stick. Choose the LIVE Session option to make sure Zorin will start. Also make sure you can configure WiFi in the Settings -> Network tab. If all goes well, click the Install Zorin link on the desktop to install Zorin onto your empty partition when prompted. Upon reboot, be sure to register Zorin in the UEFI whitelist when prompted.
Enabling VirtualBox in Zorin 16
UEFI machines are temperamental about which non-Windows apps can run. If you wish to enable VirtualBox, here are the steps. First, run the Terminal app and reinstall VirtualBox:
apt remove virtualbox-dkms apt install virtualbox-dkms
You’ll be prompted to set up a password for your new VirtualBox UEFI key (8 characters). Then reboot and register the new key when prompted. Enter the password when prompted. Now run VirtualBox from the Applications menu, and you should be good to go.
Installing Incredible PBX 2027-U for VirtualBox
Once you have VirtualBox running successfully, you can install Incredible PBX 2027-U. Using the Firefox browser, download the IncrediblePBX2027-U.ova image from here. Double-click on the .ova image to install it into VirtualBox. Then click RUN to start up Incredible PBX.
Read more about Linux Containers.
Originally published: Monday, August 21, 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.
The Ultimate LTE Modem Router: Introducing Cudy LT500D
It’s hard to get too excited when talking about routers, but the Cudy LT500D is something special. That’s because it’s not just a router. It’s also a 4G LTE modem. That means, when you snap in a SIM card from your favorite cellular provider, it becomes an always-available Internet connection regardless of where you happen to be. Yes, you can get too far out in the wilderness and lose connectivity. But the router requires an electric outlet to work so in virtually all environments with AT&T or T-Mobile access, you’re covered. Whether it’s camping out or a mountain cabin or a beach house, the LT500D is a winner. It provides instant WiFi connectivity to the Internet for your entire family. You also can send and receive SMS messages using the web interface. And there’s an awesome bonus. If you currently have Comcast or Spectrum service which regularly goes out to lunch, the Cudy LT500D is a perfect complement. Why? Because it can be configured as an automatic failover during outages.
After updating the firmware, we tested the router with SIM cards from BoostMobile and T-Mobile. Setup took less than a minute. Simply activate your SIM card in a cell phone, and then pop the card into the LT500D. It automatically configures the router to support your carrier of choice. After a reboot, you simply access the LT500D dashboard by using a browser to connect to 192.168.10.1. You can also configure an OpenVPN client connection on the router and provide VPN access to anyone that makes a WiFi connection to the router.
Choosing a cellphone plan for your router is perhaps the trickiest deployment component. Most providers don’t like devices that let multiple people share a SIM card. The best deal we could find was this current BoostMobile 5GB data plan which costs just $5 a month for the first three months. After that, you can search for another deal, or you can be clever and buy several SIM cards from BoostMobile and register down the road with a different email address. You might also consider MintMobile which sells an introductory unlimited data, 3-month plan for $15 a month. With unlimited plans, some have suggested that you may need to make your router look more like a cellphone to avoid service interruption. We don’t traffic in details for flying under the radar, but Google is your friend.
What we will share is how to configure your router as an OpenVPN client which then gives all of your WiFI users access to all of the OpenVPN clients in your virtual private network. First, create and download an OpenVPN configuration file (cudy.ovpn) from your OpenVPN server. Then, on the Cudy router, choose the General Settings menu and click on the VPN icon. Activate the Enable and Site-to-Site tabs. For the Default Rule, choose Allow All Devices. For the VPN Subnet, choose Remote Subnet. Click Edit Item and add an Allow Listed Only Rule for 10.8.0.0/255.255.255.0. Click Save. For the OpenVPN Config File, click Browse and select the cudy.ovpn file downloaded from your OpenVPN server. It will automatically fill in your OpenVPN server’s FQDN. Now click Save & Apply to bring your OpenVPN client on line. You can test things by logging in via WiFi from a PC and using a browser to access one of the 10.8.0 addresses on your virtual private network.
In conclusion, this is one of the best routers we have ever tested or used. The Advanced Settings Dashboard is in a league of its own. At $129, the Cudy LT500D is a steal. Using our referral link helps pay the bills at Nerd Vittles. Enjoy!
Originally published: Monday, June 19, 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.
Our Favorite All-You-Can-Eat Deals in Cyberspace
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.
An Electronics Home Makeover for the 21st Century
It was a sad day when we finally sold our Bozak Concert Grand speakers this year after enjoying them for over half a century. They were a graduation present from "Papa Gene" Newsom of Newsom’s Music Center when I graduated from law school in 1971. The sale got me thinking that I really needed to write about what has changed in home entertainment now that we’ve turned the page to another century. Back then, there was no Internet or Spotify, just bootleg 8-track tapes, an Apple record label, and great home audio made by McIntosh.
For those living in the present, let me tick off what we hope will save you a boatload of money in the coming years. We’ll cover Internet service providers as well as telephony, home audio and TV options, and home automation. Our plan here is to show you how to replace your $200-$500 a month Comcast, Spectrum, and cellular bills with setups that are more robust and considerably less expensive for the whole family.
Choosing a Cell Provider in 2021
With the advent of 46/LTE and 5G cellular service, the cell phone landscape in the U.S. has changed dramatically in the past two years. Unless you live in a remote location, 5G service now is available from all of the major U.S. carriers: T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T. This is where looking at the overall family picture can pay off royally. For example, T-Mobile bundles Netflix, Apple TV, and In-Flight WiFi plus discounted YouTube TV service with many of their plans, and there are substantial discounts compared with other carriers particularly if you’re on a family plan or are a military veteran or age 55+. If you wrote off T-Mobile years ago, it’s time to have another look. Their 5G coverage area now is second to none and pricing is typically 30-50% less than Verizon or AT&T. If you’re looking for the least costly all-you-can-eat cellular plan, then take a careful look at the Nerd Vittles special with Visible, which is the Verizon discount carrier. Unless you need great cell service during major sporting events inside the stadium, our $25 plan has no equal. Here’s a link to our article with the details.
Choosing an Internet Service Provider in 2021
If your cable TV and Internet bill is in the $150+ range and most are, we’ve got some exciting news for you. T-Mobile now has unlimited 5G Home Internet service for $50 a month. While it’s still a little difficult to obtain in all areas, check often. We’ve been searching for eight months in four cities and had signed up for email notice when it was available. We never got an email but, lo and behold, it popped up as available in Asheville NC when we checked last week. Once you have the T-Mobile router, it will work anywhere there’s a T-Mobile 4G/LTE or 5G tower. The results below were in Charleston, SC where the T-Mobile site shows it’s unavailable. Our one-week report card gives T-Mobile an A+ for ease of setup, web access performance, streaming media reliability, and VoIP telephony. There literally have been zero hiccups. You can review our play-by-play adventure on the VoIP-Info.org Forum.
To achieve similar performance from the service providers offering wired service, you’re looking at $100+ a month from Comcast or WOW and at least $50 a month from Spectrum. And, unfortunately, in most U.S. markets, there is zero competition between the major providers. You get Comcast or nothing in many cities and Spectrum or nothing in others.
Choosing a TV Provider in 2021
Even if you’re stuck with Comcast or Spectrum for the time being, there’s still a silver lining. Drop their TV service immediately. Our last (and final) Comcast bill included $55 for hardware rentals, $23.55 in TV broadcast fees, and $13.92 in taxes. That’s nearly $100/month just to get television delivered to your house! That’s before you sign up for a single channel. Here’s a better idea. Once you’ve invested $50 to $100 in your Internet service, sign up for YouTube TV and enjoy unlimited streaming with numerous simultaneous streams, unlimited DVR recordings, 85+ channels including your local TV channels, and almost every sporting event you can name for $65 a month with no additional fees or contracts. The picture quality with a smart TV looks exactly the same as watching cable television. CNET rated it the "best premium live TV streaming service." If you’ve taken our advice thus far, your total home entertainment bill is $50 for T-Mobile Home WiFi and $65 for YouTube TV and includes free Netflix at no additional charge.
Choosing a Music Provider in 2021
Now let’s suppose you still have a teenager in college. Rather than worry about your kids pirating music and movies, here’s a better idea. Sign them up for Spotify with unlimited music plus Showtime plus Hulu for $5 a month for four years! The good news is they’re rarely up when you are so you, too, can enjoy their Spotify, Showtime, and Hulu accounts while they’re sleeping. We’ve never been particularly big fans of Sirius/XM after they pulled their stunt of cancelling lifetime subscriptions. But that lawsuit got settled and they righted their wrong in a most generous way. You not only got your lifetime subscriptions back, but you also got free streaming. While you can’t take advantage of the lifetime subscription any longer, you still can snag the service for about $5 a month if you wait for a deal. That gets you hundreds of music channels for your car plus streaming to your favorite phone, PC, or Sonos device so it’s worth a careful look if you like music.
Home Automation Basics for 2021
If you haven’t dipped your toes into home automation, it’s finally time. An inexpensive Amazon Echo device will get you started. They range in price from under $50 to a couple hundred dollars. Our favorite is the Echo Show 8 for $99. This will bring Alexa into your home and in many of the newer automobiles as well. The next step is to purchase a few smart light bulbs so you can light up your house when the sun goes down and turn off the lights when you crawl into bed at 8:30. There are lots of lights to choose from. Our favorites are Sylvania’s WiFi Smart Lights which can bring every color of the rainbow to your lamps for under $10. For everyday use, you can pick your favorite shade of white, and for holidays, you can set them to orange for Halloween and red and green for Christmas. Now buy yourself a Nest WiFi thermostat and never worry about the proper setting again. It’s that smart. Then get yourself an August Door Lock, and you’ll never have to fumble for your house keys again. Finally, link Spotify with Alexa, and every song on the planet awaits your command. Get hip, dude!
TIP: Using our Amazon referral links helps keep the lights burning brightly at Nerd Vittles.
What About Telephony?
We saved the best for last. Hopefully, you don’t still have a Ma Bell telephone hanging on the wall in your kitchen. But, if you do, today’s your lucky day. You can dump Ma Bell and add a little gizmo called a Raspberry Pi to your home electronics collection. Then follow our tutorial and for about $100 and a monthly cost of a few dollars, you can enjoy home telephone service using your WiFi Internet connection forever. Welcome to the 21st century. Enjoy!
Originally published: Saturday, October 23, 2021
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.
Is SIP Trunking Safe & Reliable in the DDoS World?
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.
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.
Review: The 2021 Cadillac Escalade – Everything a Tesla Isn’t
Happy Valentine’s Day. We’re on our fifth year of our love-hate relationship with Elon and Tesla. After a second purchase of a Tesla with Full Self-Driving (FSD) and no cigar, it’s beginning to smell more like vaporware. Tesla now is morphing FSD into a "feature set" that includes Automatic Lane Changes, Summon from across the garage, AutoPark (maybe and sometimes), Traffic and Stop Sign Alerts, and AutoSteer on City Streets (coming soon). You’ll note that AutoSteer on the highways and interstates now has vanished even though Elon touted sleeping in the back seat while his Tesla drove him from California to New York. To juice end-of-year sales, Tesla even offered buyers a 90-day FSD subscription rather than making buyers fork over $10,000 for vaporware. In case you’re confused by Tesla’s new nomenclature, keep in mind that many vehicles have had most of these "FSD features" for years, but nobody else called it full self-driving much less charging $10,000 for it.
Which brings us to General Motors and the 2021 Cadillac Escalade with SuperCruise for an extra $2,500. Guess what? On all major highways in the United States, it offers hands-free Full Self-Driving so long as you sit in the driver’s seat and keep your eyes on the road. Does it park itself? Yes. Does it have Automatic Lane Change? Yes. Does it have a HUD display? Yes. Does it have Night Vision? Yes. Does the dashboard look like a glorified golf cart? No. In fact, the dashboard sports curved OLED displays measuring more than three feet in total width. Any commercial airline pilot will be drooling. Can it really drive itself without your touching the steering wheel? Absolutely. Is it perfect? Damn near. Will you ever buy a Tesla again? Probably not. This is especially true considering GM’s new electric Hummer EV is just around the corner and will also include SuperCruise.
Want to know more? Well, here you go. There’s a vertical wireless charging holster between the seats that works great with an iPhone or an Android phone. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto work perfectly without ever plugging in a cable. The Escalade dash now offers lots of apps and automatic updates. Welcome, Alexa. You now can say, "Open the Garage", or "Lock the Front Door", or "Turn on the Living Room Lights" from the comfort of your car. And our old favorite, Waze, works great to alert you to every speed trap on the road. Got a favorite radio station in a distant city? The Escalade has you covered with TuneIn. And Spotify and Pandora are as close as your dashboard. Every car these days has a backup camera. The Escalade has cameras everywhere, and you can view any of them from your dashboard. There’s even a zoom in and zoom out feature. The car has its own WiFi HotSpot, or you can connect to the Internet via a Personal Hotspot on your smartphone. And, yes, the car slams on its brakes before you hit something or someone in front of or behind your vehicle.
https://youtu.be/MDTmNBGvcUY
Finally, a word about Escalade fuel costs compared to Tesla Superchargers. If you’re planning to buy a Tesla to save money on fuel costs, DON’T. Back in 2016, Tesla touted that its superchargers would "never be a profit center." This may be Tesla’s biggest scam of all. Florida has some of the least expensive electricity rates in the U.S. Yet when you use a Supercharger in Florida, the cost is nearly 8 cents a mile. But that’s a mile according to the Tesla dashboard. Just because a Tesla shows 320 miles of range, don’t believe it. 320 miles of charge actually gets you about 240 miles of driving range at typical interstate highway speeds. When you factor that into the actual cost per mile, the number is closer to 11 cents a mile. For a vehicle such as an Escalade which can use regular fuel and still get 20 miles per gallon even by the EPA highway estimate, that translates into an almost identical cost per mile. Florida regular gas is selling for about $2.20 per gallon. While an Escalade is anything but fuel efficient, your actual cost per mile is nearly the same as driving a Tesla Model X using Tesla’s Superchargers for electricity. Funny how Big Oil has managed to make gazillions of dollars off gasoline sales charging the same prices as Elon’s "non-profit" superchargers.
For those that are wondering, would we buy the new Escalade? Absolutely. In fact, we already have. Put this car on your Bucket List. Or surprise your Valentine. It’s that good.
UPDATE: And now there’s this:
Originally published: Sunday, February 14, 2021 Updated: Wednesday, April 14, 2021
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