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The Most Versatile VoIP Provider: FREE PORTING
JUST RELEASED: Visit the Incredible PBX WikiRevolutionary VoIP: The Best (free) PBX Ever from 3CX
There are evolutions, and then there are revolutions. Today is another revolutionary day for free VoIP. The new 3CX v15.5 Update 3 is revolutionary on so many levels: price, feature set, flexibility, stability, and security for openers. For Nerd Vittles readers that want a free PBX for your home or business, here’s the latest and greatest. You get the 3CX Standard License features listed here with up to 16 simultaneous calls for one year. That setup easily supports about 50 extensions. At the expiration of the year, you can purchase the standard annual license OR your free license will automatically convert to a 4-simultaneous-call perpetual license with unlimited trunks for the duration of the installation, including DNS, email, SSL certs, webmeeting, etc. Nothing else to buy ever!1 This perpetual license includes unlimited SIP trunks and gateways, 25-participant conferencing, G.722 and G.729 support with HD Voice, custom FQDNs, BLF support, Call Parking, Call Queueing, Call Pickup, Call Recordings and Management, Call Reporting, Intercom/Paging, Integrated Fax Server and Office 365 Address Book/Microsoft Outlook integration plus all of the 3CX client software. Better hurry. This offer won’t last forever! Here’s the signup link. 2
Unlimited Trunks, 50 Extensions, 16 Simultaneous Calls… Free!
The 3CX development team not only heard but also heeded our suggestion to expand the number of trunks in the free edition by removing the limitation entirely. With small businesses and home users, the number of times you ever will need to make more than 16 simultaneous calls is probably NEVER. Based upon industry standards, this 16-call, 50-extension PBX with unlimited trunks can easily support several dozen people so it’s perfect for home use and small to medium-sized businesses. And, when your business grows, upgrading to a larger PBX is inexpensive and a one-minute key swap.
Cost savings, of course, are only part of the VoIP story. There’s a reason 3CX’s business is growing geometrically while others struggle. 3CX provides an unmatched feature set that’s easy to use and deploy. Version 15.5 Update 3 brings the Linux platform to full parity with 3CX’s previous Windows editions plus all-new 3CX clients for every desktop and mobile device. There’s also an awesome new web client providing users easy access to all key 3CX features without installing any software. Desktop call control including Click2Call now is based on uaCSTA technology. Snom, Yealink, and Granstream phones as well as 3CX clients can be controlled from any desktop client even if your phone system is running in the cloud. And we’ve got a whopper deal for you there as well today.
With 3CX’s powerful client software, your office and your PBX can literally be anywhere. Your desktop is always as close as your smartphone or the nearest WiFi hotspot. That’s what unified communications is all about. And, should you ever need support, 3CX has offices in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Hong Kong, South Africa, Russia and Australia. Review the 3CX feature comparison chart and you can judge the feature set for yourself. Whether you’re a homebody or world traveler, we think you’ll agree that 3CX’s new free edition for Nerd Vittles readers offers everything that a home or SOHO user will ever need in a PBX.
Getting Started with 3CX on Dedicated Hardware or a Virtual Machine. If your platform supports ISO installs, here are the simple steps to get 3CX up and running. Just follow this 3CX tutorial to download the ISO and begin your adventure. Boot your server from the ISO image and walk through the Debian 9 setup process. We recommend 2GB of RAM and a 20GB drive for 3CX. When the install is finished, make note of the IP address to access with a web browser to complete the setup. Enter your 3CX license key when prompted. Set up one or more SIP trunks with inbound and outbound call routes. Once you have the ISO and your license key in hand, the installation procedure takes less than 10 minutes.
Getting Started with 3CX in the Cloud. Begin by setting up a 64-bit Debian 9 platform. Obtain a free Nerd Vittles license key for 3CX. Once your Debian install is finished, log in as root using SSH or Putty and issue these commands. NOTE: What appears as the third line below needs to be added to line #2!
wget -O- http://downloads.3cx.com/downloads/3cxpbx/public.key | apt-key add - echo "deb http://downloads.3cx.com/downloads/debian stretch main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/3cxpbx.list apt-get update apt-get install libcurl3=7.38.0-4+deb8u5 apt-get install net-tools apt-get install 3cxpbx
When the initial setup finishes, choose the Web Interface Wizard and complete the install using your favorite web browser. Enter your 3CX license key when prompted. Set up one or more SIP trunks with inbound and outbound call routes. Done.
Beginning with this release, you have your choice of using a Google Cloud-hosted 3CX server at no cost for a year or many other cloud providers of your choice. The problem with the Google Cloud offering is what to do after the first year. Our personal preference is to set up your own cloud server where things stay the same as you move forward from year to year. At this time, 3CX does not support OpenVZ containers. However, Vultr offers a $2.50/month 512MB RAM plan that works just fine. 50 cents more buys you automatic backups that we highly recommend. And OVH offers quadruple the RAM for $4.49/month on a 12-month plan.
Configuring Gmail as SMTP RelayHost for 3CX. 3CX has a detailed tutorial explaining how to set up your Gmail account as the SMTP relay host for 3CX. Be advised that there is one additional step before Google will authorize access from an IP address it doesn’t already have for your GMail account. In addition to Enabling Less Secure Apps (as covered in the 3CX tutorial), you also will need to activate the Google Reset Procedure while logged into your Gmail account. Otherwise, Google will block access. Once you have configured Gmail as your relay host and performed the two enabling steps above, immediately test email delivery within the 3CX GUI while Google security is relaxed: Settings → Email → TEST.
Free Calling in the U.S. and Canada with 3CX. We know our more frugal U.S. residents are wondering if there’s a way to make free calls even with 3CX. You didn’t really think there would be a release of PBX in a Flash without Google Voice support, did you? It’s easy using the Simonics SIP to Google Voice gateway service. Setup time is about a minute, and the one-time cost is $4.99 using this Nerd Vittles link. Setup instructions for the 3CX side are straight-forward as well, and we’ve documented the procedure on the PIAF Forum.
Free Calling Worldwide with SIP URIs. There’s another free calling option as well. 3CX supports worldwide SIP URI calling at no cost. As part of the 3CX install procedure, 3CX registers an FQDN for you with one of the 3CX domains if you indicate that your server has a dynamic IP address. Unless you really know what you’re doing with DNS, it’s a good idea to tell 3CX you have a dynamic IP address whether you do or not. Here’s why. Once you have an assigned FQDN in the 3CX universe, one very slick feature is the ease with which you can publish a SIP URI address for any or all of your 3CX extensions thereby allowing 3CX users to receive calls from any SIP client worldwide at no cost. Setup takes less than a minute. It’s as easy as 1-2-3. Here’s how:
1. Login to the 3CX GUI and go to Settings → Network → FQDN. Tick "Allow calls from/to external SIP URIs" and make note of your FQDN, e.g. mypiaf5server.3cx.us. Click OK.
2. For an extension to enable (e.g. 001), go to Extensions → Edit 001 → Options → SIP ID and create any desired SIP URI alias for this extension, e.g. billybob. Click OK.
3. If your PBX is sitting behind a router/firewall, be sure the following UDP ports are forwarded to the local IP address of your PBX: 5001, 5060, 5090, and 9000-9255.
4. Anyone with a SIP client anywhere worldwide can now call extension 001 using SIP URI: billybob@mypiaf5server.3cx.us.
Originally published: Wednesday, June 7, 2017 Updated: Thursday, February 8, 2018
Need help with 3CX or VoIP? Visit the PBX in a Flash 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.
Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…
- This offering applies to 3CX V15.5 Update 3 released on February 8, 2018. [↩]
- Don’t confuse 3CX’s free PBX with Sangoma’s FreePBX® GUI. The former is a truly free PBX provided by a well-respected developer of commercial PBXs and used by many of the world’s largest companies including Boeing, McDonalds, Hugo Boss, Ramada Plaza Antwerp, Harley Davidson, Wilson Sporting Goods, and Pepsi. The latter is a code generator for Asterisk® that commingles free components with commercial NagWare, each of which requires payment of separate licensing and maintenance fees before and during subsequent use. [↩]
A New Day for 3CX: Free Text-to-Speech Apps from Santa
And you thought you needed an Asterisk® PBX for your users to enjoy GPL1 text-to-speech applications such as current News Headlines and Weather reports from the convenience of their telephone. Well, move over Asterisk. PIAF5™ and 3CX® now offer virtually identical functionality with all of the terrific advantages that a commercial-quality PBX provides: reliability, support, updates, security, and an unmatched UC platform that is second to none.
There is no 3CX support for interactive TTS or STT applications (yet). So we’re doing the next best thing. Once or more a day, we will use cron jobs to retrieve the latest News Headlines and Weather reports for your local area. Then anyone on your 3CX PBX can pick up a phone and listen to the News Headlines by dialing 951 or U.S. weather forecasts by dialing 947, or worldwide weather forecasts from ApiXU by dialing 949. We’ll be using IBM’s awesome TTS engine to handle the text-to-speech chores. We think you will agree that IBM’s offering is the best in the business. And you can’t beat the price. After your first free month, you get a million characters of FREE text-to-speech synthesis every month forever! For ApiXU worldwide weather data, your first 2,500 queries from 3CX are also FREE every month.
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/364353344″ params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="80%" height="350″ iframe="true" /]
Getting Started with IBM Bluemix TTS Service
NOV. 1 UPDATE: IBM has moved the goal posts effective December 1, 2018:
You can start your free, 30-day trial of IBM Bluemix services without providing a credit card. Just sign up here. Once your account is activated, here’s how to obtain credentials for the TTS service to use with PIAF5 and 3CX. Start by logging in to your IBM Bluemix account. Once you’re logged in, click on your account name (1) in the upper right corner of your web page to reveal the pull-down to select your Region, Organization, and Space. Follow the blue links at the bottom of the pull-down menu to create an Organization and Space for your TTS service.
Next, click the Menu icon which is displayed as three horizontal bars on the left side of the web page. Choose Watson. Click Create Watson Service and select Text to Speech from the applications listing. Watson will generate a new TTS service template and display it. Make certain that your Region, Organization, and Space are shown correctly. Then verify that the Standard Pricing Plan is selected. When everything is correct, click the Create button.
When your Text to Speech application displays, click Service Credentials and then click New Credential (+). When the Add New Credential dialog appears, leave the default settings as they are and click Add. Your Credentials Listing then will appear. Click View Credentials beside the new entry you just created. Write down your URL, username, and password. You’ll need these in Step #4 below to configure the IBM Bluemix TTS service. Logout of the IBM Cloud by clicking on the little face in the upper right corner of your browser window and choose Log Out. Confirm that you do, indeed, wish to log out.
Getting Started with ApiXU Weather
Finding free worldwide weather forecasts has been a difficult nut to crack. So we’re pleased to introduce ApiXU. Your first 5,000 API calls every month are free, but our Worldwide Weather application for 3CX actually makes two API calls to retrieve the latest weather conditions AND the weather forecast. What that means is you can make 2,500 free queries a month with the Nerd Vittles application. One or two a day should suffice. While the U.S. weather reports are retrieved by ZIP code, the ApiXU queries are retrieved by city. So long as you don’t choose small towns, the city names should be sufficiently unique to work well with the WorldWide Weather application. HINT: Nicosia in Cyprus (home of 3CX) works great! 😉
Before you can obtain worldwide weather reports, you’ll need to sign up for an account at ApiXU.com. Once you’re registered, log into your account and copy down your API Key. You’ll need it in a minute.
5 Steps to TTS Paradise with 3CX
Once you have your IBM TTS credentials in hand, there are only five simple steps to get everything set up for TTS application support on your 3CX PBX. When we’re finished, anyone on your 3CX PBX can pick up a phone and listen to the News Headlines by dialing 951, a U.S. Weather Forecast by dialing 947, or Worldwide Weather for most international cities by dialing 949.
- Download WAV file placeholders to your Desktop PC
- Set up 3 Digital Receptionists on your 3CX Dashboard
- Install the Linux components to support TTS Applications
- Insert IBM and ApiXU Credentials, Email Address and Locations
- Run the News Headlines and Weather Update Scripts
1. Downloading WAV File Placeholders
On the desktop computer from which you will access the 3CX Dashboard with a browser, download and unzip http://incrediblepbx.com/3cx-tts-desktop.zip. This gets you the three WAV files that we will use as placeholders in 3CX to support current News Headlines and Weather reports.
2. Setting Up Digital Receptionists in 3CX
Before you can implement the Nerd Vittles TTS Apps for News Headlines, Weather by ZIP Code, and Worldwide Weather, we first need to create the proper environment on the 3CX side to support the new applications. We’ll be using the 3CX Digital Receptionist for this purpose, and we’ll make one adjustment to the IVR environment to support scripted updates. First, we need to disable caching of sound prompts since we’ll be updating these every day, and we don’t want to have to reload the 3CX IVR module each time we make changes. Then we need to set up three Digital Receptionist extensions, one for the News Headlines and one for each of the Weather applications.
Login to your 3CX Dashboard with a browser.
First, we need to add a hidden environment variable to the 3CX Parameters Table to disable caching of IVR sound files. Here’s how.
From the 3CX Dashboard, choose Settings, then Parameters, and click Add. Insert the following new entry to the Parameters Table and then click OK:
Name: IVR_CACHE_DISABLE Description: Disable IVR caching of sound files Value: 1
Now let’s add the Digital Receptionists to support the News and Weather applications. From the 3CX Dashboard, choose Digital Receptionist then Add. Fill in the blanks like this:
Name: News Headlines
Extension: 951
Prompt: news.wav (then click Upload and choose news.wav file that you downloaded in step #1 to your Desktop)
skip down toward the bottom of the template and change If no input within seconds: to 1.
Click OK to save the News Headlines Digital Receptionist.
From the 3CX Dashboard, choose Digital Receptionist then Add. Fill in the blanks like this:
Name: Weather by ZIP Code
Extension: 947
Prompt: weather.wav (then click Upload and choose weather.wav file that you downloaded in step #1 to your Desktop)
skip down toward the bottom of the template and change If no input within seconds: to 1.
Click OK to save the Weather by ZIP Code Digital Receptionist.
Name: Worldwide Weather
Extension: 949
Prompt: wwweather.wav (then click Upload and choose wwweather.wav file that you downloaded in step #1 to your Desktop)
skip down toward the bottom of the template and change If no input within seconds: to 1.
Click OK to save the Worldwide Weather Digital Receptionist.
Try things out by dialing 947, 949, and 951 from any 3CX extension. Be sure these work before proceeding!
3. Installing Linux Components for TTS
First, we need to get the missing pieces in place to support TTS applications using IBM Bluemix TTS and the Nerd Vittles scripts. We want to add PHP support from the Linux CLI only so there will be no security issues. And we want to add support for SQLite 3 so we can look up latitude and longitude data for U.S. zip codes. Just issue the following commands to get everything set up:
apt-get update apt-get -y install php-fpm php-curl php-cli php-pear php-db php-gd sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev apt-get -y install sox lame libsox-fmt-mp3 sed -i 's|;cgi.fix_pathinfo=1|cgi.fix_pathinfo=0|' /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php.ini systemctl restart php7.0-fpm
Next, we need to put the Nerd Vittles scripts and ZIP code database for SQLite 3 in place:
cd / wget http://incrediblepbx.com/3cx-tts-linux.tar.gz tar zxvf 3cx-tts-linux.tar.gz rm -f 3cx-tts-linux.tar.gz
Finally, we need to add cron jobs to run the three update scripts at least once a day. You can run them more often depending upon your needs. We have these configured to run at 6:15 am and 6:20 am every day. Adjust to meet your own requirements. To update the cached voice prompts, each of these update scripts stops and restarts the 3CX IVR Service. On a busy PBX, you probably don’t want to run them during the workday.
echo "15 6 * * * root /root/nv-weather-update.sh >/dev/null 2>&1" >> /etc/crontab echo "20 6 * * * root /root/nv-news-update.sh >/dev/null 2>&1" >> /etc/crontab echo "25 6 * * * root /root/nv-wwweather-update.sh >/dev/null 2>&1" >> /etc/crontab
4. Adding TTS Credentials to Your 3CX PBX
Now we need to add your IBM TTS and ApiXU credentials, email address, a local ZIP code for Weather by ZIP code reports, and a city for Worldwide Weather reports. Edit the credentials file and save it with your information:
cd /root nano -w ibm-credentials.php
5. Running the News & Weather Update Scripts
Finally, we need to run the News Headlines and two Weather update scripts once to put current data in place for 3CX callers. After the initial setup, the cron jobs will update the News Headlines and Weather reports every day moving forward. Press ENTER as each of the scripts finishes to get back to a command prompt.
cd /root ./nv-news-update.sh ./nv-weather-update.sh ./nv-wwweather-update.sh
Taking the News & Weather Apps for a Spin
Now you’re ready to try things out. From any phone connected to your 3CX, dial 951 for current News Headlines. Then dial 947 for a local Weather Report matching your zip code. Finally, dial 949 to retrieve a worldwide weather forecast for most international cities. Enjoy!
Originally published: Monday, December 4, 2017 Updated: Friday, March 2, 2018
Support Issues. With any application as sophisticated as this one, you’re bound to have questions. Blog comments are a terrible place to handle support issues although we welcome general comments about our articles and software. If you have particular support issues, we encourage you to get actively involved in the PBX in a Flash Forums. It’s the best Asterisk tech support site in the business, and it’s all free! Please have a look and post your support questions there. Unlike some forums, ours is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk and 3CX gurus and thousands of users just like you. You won’t have to wait long for an answer to your question.
Need help with Asterisk or 3CX? Visit the PBX in a Flash 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.
Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…
- The included applications are licensed pursuant to GPL2 with the exception of nv-worldwide-weather.php which is licensed pursuant to The MIT License. Terms and conditions of both licenses are included in /root/COPYING. [↩]
November 24, 2017: A Black Friday to Remember
We try not to get too caught up in the Black Friday frenzy each year, but the 2017 edition is turning into a day to remember. We’ll tick off a few of our favorite offerings and encourage all of you to post your discoveries in the comments. And, of course, there are web sites specifically devoted to Black Friday, and we won’t compete with their broader coverage if you happen to be in a shopping mood. Be sure to check out Brad’s Deals.
Sprint (almost) Free 1-Year Unlimited* Plan. For those of you that were burned when RingPlus went out of business, there’s now a terrific way to put that Sprint-compatible phone to good use. Sprint is once again offering their unlimited talk, text, and data plan with the usual fine print at (almost) no cost for a full year. You don’t have to be a Verizon customer to qualify. All you need is a compatible Sprint/Verizon phone and an existing phone number. Most VoIP numbers seem to work. Here’s a tip to save you hours of frustration talking to Sprint. Don’t try to port a VoIP number if you don’t have an existing cellphone number to transfer. Instead, buy a TracFone BYO Smartphone kit at WalMart for under $10. When you activate TracFone with your existing smartphone, sign up for the least costly plan which is $15 a month. You’ll have a choice of using AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile with your existing smartphone. Just be sure your phone is unlocked and supports the carrier you choose. All three are available in the TracFone BYOP kit. Once you’re sure the number is working, write down the last 15 digits of the TracFone SIM card number you used. That becomes your account number when you port the line to Sprint. Log into your TracFone account, click on your phone number and set an Alias for your name. Make it 0000, and that becomes your PIN for porting purposes. Now you’re ready to sign up for Sprint service. Use your TracFone number and everything should work within minutes. Be sure the name on your Sprint and TracFone accounts is the same. With the Sprint offer, you pay $13 to get a SIM card overnight, and then you pay taxes and fees every month. No other charges as long as you choose automatic credit card billing. Here’s the signup link. NOTE: Sprint is now offering a free Hulu account on their unlimited plan, but it doesn’t seem to work for this unlimited plan. Typical Sprint.
Samsung Electronics Deals. For four days only beginning Thanksgiving Day, Samsung is offering huge savings on their latest smartphones, tablets, and TVs including up to $400 savings on a new Galaxy S8 or Note8 when you trade in an eligible phone. Samsung Q7 QLED TVs are also discounted up to 45%. Here’s a Forbes link describing all of the deals.
Hosting Provider Deals. If you’re in the market for a new hosting provider, be sure to check out LowEndBox.com for their Top 10 Black Friday offerings including OpenVZ, KVM, Storage VPS, and bare metal dedicated server platforms. Can you beat our OpenVZ deal below?
Vitelity 4-Channel DID Deal. Vitelity has been a long-time supporter of all of the open source projects championed by Nerd Vittles. Their offer to Nerd Vittles readers remains one of the best VoIP deals on the planet. For $3.99 a month, you get a DID with unlimited incoming calls (four-at-a-time) in your choice of more than 3,000 Tier A rate centers around the U.S. Just use our special Nerd Vittles sign-up link to register.
1-Year Free 3CX PBX in the Cloud. If you want to compare a commercial platform to free VoIP platforms such as Incredible PBX®, FreePBX®, Wazo®, and Issabel®, there’s never been a better time. 3CX is offering Nerd Vittles readers a full-year of their best-of-breed commercial PBX with unlimited extensions as well as a boatload of Unified Communications services at no cost. Here’s the signup link to get started.
Lowest Cost OpenVZ Platform for Incredible PBX. If monthly cost is your primary criteria for a cloud-based VoIP platform and you want the most bang for your buck (literally), then you’ll be hard-pressed to beat our special deal from HiFormance. For $13 a year, you get an OpenVZ platform with 2GB RAM, 20GB SSD, 2TB of monthly bandwidth, and awesome performance. Our speed test results looked like this:
Testing download speed..................... Download: 794.98 Mbit/s Testing upload speed....................... Upload: 284.95 Mbit/s
Cord-Cutters Delight. If you have not yet cut the cord with your cable TV provider, now is the time. DirecTV Now offers 60+ channels for $35 a month. If you have an AT&T Unlimited cellphone plan, you get a $25 a month credit that reduces the cost of DirecTV Now to just $10 a month. You can add HBO or Cinemax for an extra $5 per month. And a 100-hour DVR is just around the corner. You’ll need a streaming device to go with each of your TVs to use DirecTV Now. It’s a perfect time to buy Google’s Chromecast which will be on sale at WalMart and BestBuy for $20 on Black Friday, $25 at Target. Our favorite remains the Roku 4K Streaming Stick Plus. With 1 Month of DirecTV Now + 1 Month Showtime + $5 VUDU Credit, WalMart will have it for $48.00 on Black Friday. Better yet, if you prepay for four months of DirecTV Now, AT&T will throw in a free Apple TV 4K, a $180 value. Details here. Be advised that DirecTV Now does not (yet) stream in 4K. And, speaking of 4K TVs, you can’t beat Roku TVs which have streaming support built into the TV. Check out these deals:
43-inch Polaroid 4K TV with Chromecast for $230 at Target
49-inch TCL 4K Roku TV for $350 ($100 off) at Target
50-inch Sharp 4K Roku TV for $180 ($120 off) at BestBuy
55-inch Samsung 4K Ultra HD Smart TV for $897.99 ($302 off) at Amazon
60-inch Hitachi 4K Roku TV for $400 ($200 off) at H-E-B
60-inch Vizio 4K Smart HDR Ultra HDTV for $700 ($270 off + $200 gift card) at Dell
Costco Black Friday Deals. If you’re as big a fan of Costco as we are, then you’re in for a treat on Black Friday. You can snag a pair of Google Home devices for $179. That’s $50 off. There also are great deals on Xbox One S and Playstation 4 and many Dell computers. Details here.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Originally published: Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Support Issues. With any application as sophisticated as this one, you’re bound to have questions. Blog comments are a difficult place to address support issues although we welcome general comments about our articles and software. If you have particular support issues, we encourage you to get actively involved in the PBX in a Flash Forum. It’s the best Asterisk tech support site in the business, and it’s all free! Please have a look and post your support questions there. Unlike some forums, the PIAF Forum is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk gurus and thousands of users just like you. You won’t have to wait long for an answer to your question.
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash 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.
Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…
The Ultimate Voice Dialer for Asterisk and Incredible PBX
Let’s face it. Voice recognition with Google has been hit and miss, and that’s on a good day. So we’re delighted to shift gears and introduce a new platform powered by IBM Watson’s Speech-to-Text (STT) engine. While it’s not free, that’s really theoretical for most of our readers. Your first month on the platform is entirely free. And, after that, you get 1,000 minutes a month of free voice recognition services. If you still want more, it’s 2¢ a minute.
We first introduced IBM’s STT platform back in March when we documented how to use the service to transcribe voicemails and deliver them via email. Today, we’re introducing the Incredible Voice Dialer for Asterisk. It runs on all of the major Incredible PBX platforms: CentOS, Wazo, and Issabel. It’s married to our AsteriDex phonebook application that is deployed with Incredible PBX using MySQL, MariaDB, or SQLite3 depending upon platform.
The way it works is a user picks up an extension on your PBX and dials 411. The caller will be prompted for the name of the person or company to call. Once the caller says the name, the Incredible Voice Dialer will send the recording to IBM’s Watson STT engine for transcription. The result is then passed to AsteriDex where the text will be matched against the phone number saved for that person or company. The number is then passed to your default outbound trunk to place the call. All of the magic happens in less than two seconds, and the call begins ringing at your destination. You can try it out for yourself on our demo server this week. Just dial: , choose option 1 when the IVR answers, and then say "Delta Airlines" or "American Airlines" when prompted for a name. The queries support wildcard matching. If you say "Delta", you’ll still be connected to Delta Airlines.
What About the Quality? Here’s the bottom line. Speech recognition isn’t all that useful if it fails miserably in recognizing everyday speech. The good news is that IBM Watson’s speech recognition engine is now the best in the business. If you want more details, read the article below which will walk you through IBM’s latest speech recognition breakthrough:
Why IBM's speech recognition breakthrough matters for AI and IoT. Via @techrepublic https://t.co/AJi8MA3E20
— IBM Developer (@IBMDeveloper) March 15, 2017
Creating an IBM Bluemix Speech to Text Account
NOV. 1 UPDATE: IBM has moved the goal posts effective December 1, 2018:
1. Create Bluemix account here.
2. Confirm your registration by replying to email from IBM.
3. Login to Bluemix using your new credentials.
4. Agree to terms and conditions, name your organization, and name your space (STT).
5. Choose Watson Speech to Text service and click Create.
6. When Speech to Text-kb opens, click Service Credentials tab (on the left).
7. In Actions column, click View Credentials. Write down your username and password.
8. Logout by clicking on image icon in upper right corner of dialog window.
Install Voice Dialer with Incredible PBX for Wazo
1. Login to your server as root using SSH/Putty and issue the following commands:
cd / wget http://incrediblepbx.com/ibmstt-411-wazo.tar.gz tar zxvf ibmstt-411-wazo.tar.gz rm -f ibmstt-411-wazo.tar.gz sed -i '\\:// BEGIN Call by Name:,\\:// END Call by Name:d' /etc/asterisk/extensions_extra.d/xivo-extrafeatures.conf sed -i '/\\[xivo-extrafeatures\\]/r /tmp/411.txt' /etc/asterisk/extensions_extra.d/xivo-extrafeatures.conf asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
2. Edit /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/getnumber.sh and insert your IBM credentials from step #7 above into these variables:
API_USERNAME="XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX" API_PASSWORD="XXXXXXXXXXXX"
3. Save the file.
Install Voice Dialer on Other Incredible PBX Platforms
1. Login to your server as root using SSH/Putty and issue the following commands:
cd / wget http://incrediblepbx.com/ibmstt-411.tar.gz tar zxvf ibmstt-411.tar.gz rm -f ibmstt-411.tar.gz sed -i '\\:// BEGIN Call by Name:,\\:// END Call by Name:d' /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf sed -i '/\\[from-internal-custom\\]/r /tmp/411.txt' /etc/asterisk/extensions_custom.conf asterisk -rx "dialplan reload"
2. Edit /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/getnumber.sh and insert your IBM credentials from step #7 above into these variables:
API_USERNAME="XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX" API_PASSWORD="XXXXXXXXXXXX"
3. Save the file.
Take Incredible Voice Dialer for a Test Drive
1. From an extension connected to your PBX, dial 411. When prompted for the name to call, say "Delta Airlines" or "American Airlines."
2. Quicker than you could actually dial the number, you’ll be connected.
Building Voice-Enabled Applications with Asterisk
All of our code is open source, GPL2 code so you’re more than welcome to use it, learn from it, and then build your own voice-enabled applications. Just abide by the terms of the license and share. When you review /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/getnumber.sh, you’ll see that it’s incredibly easy to change the backend database. Here’s the Wazo flavor of the script:
API_USERNAME="XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX" API_PASSWORD="XXXXXXXXXXXX" thisfile="$1" # sending the recording to IBM Watson for transcription curl -k -u $API_USERNAME:$API_PASSWORD -X POST --limit-rate 40000 --header "Content-Type: audio/wav" --data-binary @/tmp/$thisfile.wav "https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/recognize?continuous=true&model=en-US_NarrowbandModel" 1>/tmp/$thisfile.txt # grabbing the text out of the IBM Watson response msg=`cat /tmp/$thisfile.txt | grep transcript | cut -f 2 -d ":" | cut -f 2 -d '"' | sed 's| *$||' | sed -e "s/\b\(.\)/\u/g"`% # passing text to MySQL (1st line) or SQLite3 (2nd line) for name lookup. answer is num2call. #num2call=$(mysql -uroot -ppassw0rd asteridex -ss -N -e "SELECT user1.out FROM user1 where name LIKE '$msg'"); num2call=`/usr/bin/sqlite3 /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/asteridex.sqlite "select out from user1 where name LIKE '$msg'"` # clearing out our temporary files rm -f /tmp/$thisfile.* # passing the results to the Asterisk dialplan echo "SET VARIABLE PTY2CALL "\""$msg"\""" echo "SET VARIABLE NUM2CALL "\""$num2call"\""" # we're done with the AGI bash script so let's exit gracefully exit 0
The Asterisk dialplan code could be modified for any number of applications. Here’s what it looks like on the Incredible PBX 13 platform. It’s slightly different with Wazo to accomodate their dialplan syntax.
;# // BEGIN Call by Name
exten => 411,1,Answer
exten => 411,n,Playback(custom/411)
exten => 411,n,Set(RANDFILE=${RAND(8000,8599)})
exten => 411,n,Record(/tmp/${RANDFILE}.wav,3,10)
exten => 411,n,Playback(/tmp/${RANDFILE})
exten => 411,n,AGI(getnumber.sh,${RANDFILE})
exten => 411,n,NoOp(Party to call : ${PTY2CALL})
exten => 411,n,NoOp(Number to call: ${NUM2CALL})
exten => 411,n,Goto(outbound-allroutes,${NUM2CALL},1)
exten => 411,n,Hangup()
;# // END Call by Name
There’s nothing magical about it. (1) It answers the call to 411. (2) It plays back a recording that prompts the user to say the name of the person or company to call. (3) It generates a random number to use for the filenames associated with the STT process. (4) It records the caller’s speech and saves it to the random filename as a .wav file which IBM STT can understand. (5) It passes the call to the AGI bash script to send the recording to IBM Watson and obtain the transcription and to pass the text to MySQL or SQLite3 to lookup the text in the AsteriDex database. (6) We display the called party’s name on the Asterisk CLI. (7) We display the called party’s phone number on the Asterisk CLI. (8) We place the call using the PBX’s default outbound route. (9) We hangup the call when it’s completed.
Published: Monday, October 9, 2017
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash 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.
Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…
RTPbleed Security Alert: Asterisk Calls Can Be Intercepted
If you’ve installed Asterisk® during the past 4½ years, your server has a MAJOR security problem. If you didn’t already know, with Asterisk, your VoIP conversations actually are carried over a random UDP port using the Real Time Protocol (RTP), not the SIP port (UDP 5060) which handles the setup and teardown of your VoIP connections. It turns out that, since March 2013, all of that RTP traffic and thus your conversations could be intercepted and redirected by anyone on the Internet. As this recent article in The Register noted:
The problem occurs when [communications] systems like IP telephony have to get past network address translation (NAT) firewalls. The traffic has to find its way from the firewall’s public IP address to the internal address of the device or server, and to do that, RTP learns the IP and port addresses to associate with a call.
The problem is, the process doesn’t use any kind of authentication.
This is exacerbated by the fact that, by default, Asterisk and FreePBX® traditionally use the NAT=yes setting (whether needed or not) to enable this navigational magic just in case your calls need it. Without it, you may end up with no audio or one-way audio on your calls. Traditional wisdom was that an attacker needed to be positioned between the caller and the Asterisk server in order to intercept this media stream. As luck would have it, it turns out the man in the middle didn’t need to be in the middle after all. He could be anywhere on the Internet. The old adage to talk on the phone as if someone else were listening turns out to have been pretty good advice in the case of Asterisk communications. Even if you had a firewall, chances are you protected UDP port 5060 while exposing and forwarding UDP 10000-20000 to Asterisk without any safeguards.
According to last week’s Asterisk advisory, “To exploit this issue, an attacker needs to send RTP packets to the Asterisk server on one of the ports allocated to receive RTP. When the target is vulnerable, the RTP proxy responds back to the attacker with RTP packets relayed from the other party. The payload of the RTP packets can then be decoded into audio.” Specifically, if UDP ports 10000-20000 are publicly exposed to the Internet, anybody and everybody can intercept your communications without credentials of any kind. WOW!
So, there’s a patch to fix this, right? Well, not exactly:
Note that as for the time of writing, the official Asterisk fix is vulnerable to a race condition. An attacker may continuously spray an Asterisk server with RTP packets. This allows the attacker to send RTP within those first few packets and still exploit this vulnerability.
The other recommended "solutions" aren’t much better:
- When possible the nat=yes option should be avoided
- To protect against RTP injection, encrypt media streams with SRTP
- Add config option for SIP peers to prioritize RTP packets
The nat=no option doesn’t work if you or your provider employs NAT-based routers. The SRTP option only works on more recent releases of Asterisk, and it also requires SRTP support on every SIP phone. Prioritizing RTP packets is not a task for mere mortals.
Surprisingly, the one solution that is not even mentioned is hardening your firewall to block incoming UDP 10000-20000 traffic that originates outside your server. Our recognized SIP expert on the PIAF Forum had the simple solution. Bill Simon observed:
If the SDP in the INVITE or subsequent re-INVITE contains routable IP addresses, then use them for media. If the SDP contains non-routable IP addresses, then the client is behind a NAT and not using any NAT traversal techniques like SIP ALG, ICE/STUN, so send to the originating IP. Why are we making allowances here for media to come from anywhere? I think you can probably clamp down your firewall as much as you want, because symmetric RTP should allow media to get through by way of establishing an outbound stream (inbound stream comes back on the same path).
Our testing confirms that simply blocking incoming RTP traffic on your firewall solves the problem without any Asterisk patch. In short, RTP traffic cannot originate from anonymous sources on the Internet.
For those using Incredible PBX® or Travelin’ Man 3 or an IPtables firewall, the fix is easy. Simply remove or comment out the INPUT rule that looks like this and restart IPtables:
-A INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 10000:20000 -j ACCEPT
On RedHat/CentOS servers, the rule is in /etc/sysconfig/iptables. On Debian/Ubuntu and Raspbian servers, you’ll find the rule in /etc/iptables/rules.v4. On Incredible PBX for Issabel servers, you’ll find the rule in /usr/local/sbin/iptables-custom. On all Incredible PBX platforms, remember to restart IPtables using only this command: iptables-restart.
Published: Friday, September 8, 2017
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash 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.
Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…
Best of the Internet: American Road Warrior’s Fall Roundup
The Internet is all about sharing the best finds and once a year we like to take a fresh look at what’s new and exciting whether you travel frequently or not. While the primary focus of Nerd Vittles is VoIP technology, you can’t provide the best VoIP solutions without also exploring network and cellular technology. And, as the old saying goes, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. When we travel for more than a day or two, we like to have a music and video source other than an iPhone. So let’s start there. And there’s plenty to love here even if you never leave the comfort of your living room.
For movies and TV shows, nothing holds a candle to a $10 subscription to Netflix. You can watch on your phone, or tablet, or PC, and someone else in your family can do the same thing at the same time. For $2 more, you can watch on four devices at a time. If you happen to have a rental unit, your renters will always remember you for the free Netflix subscription. Our second place alternative is primarily for cord cutters. DirecTV Now is just $10/month if you happen to have an AT&T Unlimited Data Plan (regularly $35). That gets you 60+ live channels and 20,000 on demand titles. For an extra $5, you can add HBO. With a two-month prepayment, you can snag a free Roku Premier until September 22, 2017. DirecTV Now also aupports streaming to two simultaneous devices, and a 100-hour DVR is just around the corner.
For cellular service, we’ve never been big fans of corporate tying. Believe it or not, there was a time when most thought it was illegal. But there’s a loophole. So long as you’re not forced to buy the unrelated product, it’s not technically a tying violation. And that’s where we find ourselves today with American oligopolies. You’d be crazy not to take advantage of the opportunities especially since AT&T bought DirecTV. An AT&T unlimited data plan for your cellular service unlocks all sorts of goodies with DirecTV. We’ve mentioned the $25 monthly credit with DirecTV Now. But it’s also available with standard DirecTV subscriptions. And you get HBO and NFL Sunday Ticket at no charge as well. With four devices including a Wi-Fi HotSpot, our cellular plan with AT&T costs under $50/month per device including taxes and fees. It provides unlimited talk, text, and data in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The 22GB data throttling gotcha doesn’t apply in many locations including our hometown of Charleston, SC. We racked up 90GB of data usage on the hotspot during our last 8-day vacation. Never a hiccup! Whether you’re in a car, a hotel room, or on a cruise ship, the $59 AT&T Velocity 4G LTE HotSpot is a perfect traveling companion supporting 10 device connections for up to 10 hours.
For international cellular data service, there’s a terrific new option that provides unlimited 4G data service in 100+ countries for $9 per day. This compares favorably with AT&T’s outrageous cruise ship offering of $8.19 per megabyte of data traffic. You can purchase the Skyroam Solis device for $150 on Amazon, or you can rent one in major airports. It supports 5 devices at a time. We can’t give you a first-hand report on the Solis because it was just released this week. But we have ordered one and will provide a Grand Turk update soon. ↙
For music services, Spotify Premium remains the gold standard. $10 a month buys you unlimited streaming of almost every song ever published. $5 more gets you a family plan to support 5 people. For qualifying college students, Spotify Premium is just $5 a month. You can even download the songs to your smartphone or tablet and play them when you don’t have Internet connectivity. For extended vacations, we discovered a new boom box this summer that is worth a careful look. It combines an Android tablet with some terrific speakers to provide 12 hours of non-stop music from your favorite sources including Spotify. It also can access the best radio stations throughout the United States using the iHeartRadio app. And it even includes 8GB of internal storage as well as microSD and USB flash drive support. The Sonicgrace will set you back $190 on Amazon (MSRP: $299.99).
For music junkies, it’s worth noting that the only application that routinely crashed Android unfortunately was TuneIn Radio. For neophytes, TuneIn is the must-have app that provides streaming of virtually every commercial radio station in the world. Here’s the quick fix. We suspected that the problem involved the latest release of TuneIn which you would automatically receive using Google’s Play Store as the download source as Sonicgrace does. So the solution would be to install a prior release. Here’s how. On a desktop PC, download an earlier TuneIn APK from here. We chose 13.7 which happened to work. Next, use Gmail to send yourself a message with this 13.7.apk file as an attachment. Then, on the Sonicgrace, first install Gmail from the Play Store tapping My +:App:PlayStore. Open the Gmail app once the install finishes and then open the email message you sent yourself. Tap on the attachment, and TuneIn will automatically be installed.
For VoIP telephony, here’s another nice surprise. Google’s Amazon Echo Killer, aka Google Home, has a new feature. It can make free calls in the United States and Canada to anyone in your Google Contacts as well as any business you can find with a Google Search. Here’s the best deal we could find if you don’t already own Google Home. It’s also available at Target and WalMart for about $25 more plus tax. And here’s how to start making calls.
Published: Friday, September 1, 2017
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash 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.
Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…
The World Traveler and 3CX: A Match Made in Heaven
Last week we introduced the new (free) version of PIAF5 powered by 3CX v15.5 supporting four simultaneous calls, unlimited trunks, 10 extensions, and 10-user conference calls. And today we’re torture-testing our new 3CX server in the Bahamas aboard one of Carnival’s 3,000-passenger floating cities. Somebody’s gotta do it, right? What makes this such a challenging test for any PBX are several things. First, we’re using a free Google Voice trunk on a free 3CX PBX that we configured in under 10 minutes at CloudAtCost for a one-time cloud server charge of $17.50. Second, we’re sharing a satellite Internet connection with 3,000 other people in the middle of the Caribbean. The weekly charge is about $100 so every Internet junkie subscribes. Third, we’re using a 3CX Client on an iPhone in Airplane Mode. And, finally, we’re sitting behind the most Draconian firewall you can imagine because Carnival assumes everyone is a bad guy trying to bring their Internet service to its knees.
For those coming from the Asterisk® world, I don’t have to remind you how challenging this NAT-based setup would be even assuming you had a flawless Internet connection. Believe me. We don’t. And the secret sauce that makes all of this seem like child’s play is the latest collection of 3CX Clients for PCs, Macs, Android devices, and iPhones/iPads. Simply download the client for your platform, log into your 3CX portal and send the welcome email from a configured extension to your phone, open the email on your phone and double-click on the attachment, and boom. Your 3CX Client is automatically configured in seconds and ready to make your first call. A monkey could do it. It’s that easy!
So our torture-test for today looks more like a final exam in VoIP telephony. We’ll be using Carnival’s WiFi connection from our iPhone with its iOS 3CX Client. We’ll dial into the Incredible PBX™ at our office in Charleston. The office number is configured with a Stealth AutoAttendant which we’ll use to make an outbound call to our Demo IVR in Marbella, Spain using DISA and a FreeVoipDeal trunk. For the techies, it’s the NAT Trifecta with DTMF hurdles that are virtually impossible to traverse using Asterisk and any SIP client.
Guess what? It not only works, but it sounds like you’re sitting in the adjoining office. No echo, no DTMF problems, no missing audio, and no detectable problems in voice quality with either the Charleston IVR or the Marbella IVR. If cost matters and traveling is a key component in your telephony requirements, you owe it to yourself to set up a free 3CX PBX and take it for a spin. Whether you use it to supplement an existing Asterisk setup or as a standalone PBX, we think you’ll be thrilled with the results.
Continue reading about the new, free PIAF5 server powered by 3CX v.15.5…
Originally published: Monday, June 12, 2017
Need help with 3CX or VoIP? Visit the PBX in a Flash 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.
Some Recent Nerd Vittles Articles of Interest…
Paradise Found: Amazon’s Polly TTS Meets Incredible PBX
In a word, WOW! If you’ve previously used text-to-speech (TTS) applications with Incredible PBX™ or any other PBX, you fully appreciate the challenges of getting excellent voice quality from a synthesized voice. In addition to operating system quirks, you also had to scramble to find TTS software that had acceptable voice quality without breaking the bank. Well, it’s a new day. Amazon’s introduction of Polly TTS provides not only incredible voice quality but it comes at an unbelievable price point. Your first year is free for the first 5 million characters each month. After that and in subsequent years, it’s $4 for every million characters of TTS translation. The icing on the cake is the Wazo PBX application which provides a near perfect platform on which to implement custom applications. But, don’t take our word for it. Listen to this sample. The clip’s introduction uses the free Pico TTS voice. The Yahoo News headlines were generated with Polly. Can you say Night and Day?
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/319736570″ params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="80%" height="414″ iframe="true" /]
The beauty of Nerd Vittles projects is it’s all about the freedom to choose rather than making do with choices selected by others. Today’s addition of the Polly TTS engine brings the number of TTS options supported with Incredible PBX for Wazo to four. In addition to the free options of FLITE, Festival, and PICO, you now have a dirt cheap commercial alternative that rivals the voice quality of any available TTS application on the market. And, as we promised a few weeks ago, we plan to add the IBM Bluemix TTS platform very soon.
NOV. 1 UPDATE: IBM has moved the goal posts effective December 1, 2018:
Stewart Nelson was kind enough to share his audio clip comparing the Top Four commercial TTS applications. You can judge them for yourself. The clips are played in the following order: Amazon Parrot, Google Translate, IBM Bluemix TTS, and Microsoft.
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/320177552″ params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450″ iframe="true" /]
How New TTS Apps Will Work in Incredible PBX. That’s only half of our story today. We also are introducing a new TTS methodology that makes it easy to roll your own TTS applications and take advantage of the voice platforms already installed on your Incredible PBX for Wazo server. In our new TTS design, there are three components. First, there’s a chunk of dialplan code that answers calls, prompts for input (if required), and then passes the call off for processing and generation of the TTS results using the desired TTS platform.
The processing and TTS components consist of two PHP/AGI scripts on Asterisk® servers. This may be slightly different on 3CX servers once the functionality becomes available. The results processing script actually obtains the data to feed to the TTS processing engine. For example, this could be news headlines or a local weather forecast. This script generates plain text suitable for processing by any TTS engine. Finally, the TTS script stores your user credentials (if required) and handles translation of the results data into an audio file using the TTS platform of your choice. It also plays the audio "results" to the caller. As you add new applications, all that is necessary is a short dialplan snippet and a results processing script to obtain the necessary text to feed the TTS processing script.
Here’s a sample Asterisk dialplan snippet for the Yahoo News Headlines application. Note that you need only change the pollytts line of code to switch TTS engines. Simple design!
;# // BEGIN nv-news-yahoo
exten => 951,1,Answer
exten => 951,n,Wait(1)
exten => 951,n,Set(TIMEOUT(digit)=7)
exten => 951,n,Set(TIMEOUT(response)=10)
exten => 951,n,AGI(picotts.agi,"Please hold while we get the headlines.",en-US)
exten => 951,n,AGI(nv-news-yahoo.php,10) ; obtain latest 10 Yahoo NEWS Headlines
exten => 951,n,NoOp(News: ${NEWS}) ; display NEWS in text format on Asterisk CLI
exten => 951,n,AGI(pollytts.php,"${NEWS}") ; pass NEWS to TTS engine for playback
exten => 951,n,Hangup
;# // END nv-news-yahoo
The picotts line (above) shows the syntax to use the Pico TTS engine instead of pollytts. The new line would look like the following. Doesn’t get much easier than this:
exten => 951,n,AGI(picotts.agi,"${NEWS}",en-US)
Getting Started. Here are the steps to get everything working with your existing Incredible PBX for Wazo platform. First, you’ll need credentials from Amazon Polly after you create or sign in to your an Amazon AWS account. Enter "Polly" in the AWS dialog to add the service. Open your Security Credentials by clicking on your name and choosing My Security Credentials. Create a new Access Key ID and Secret. Make note of your Amazon region. You’ll need it as well as your credentials in a minute. Next, you’ll need to put the pieces in place on your Wazo server to support Polly TTS. We’ve made this easy by bundling everything into a single tarball. Just log into your server as root, download the tarball, untar it, add MP3 support for SOX, run the included script to install the dialplan code, and edit the pollytts.php script to install your Amazon credentials. Install time: under a minute.
cd /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin cp -p nv-news-yahoo.php nv-news-yahoo-orig.php cp -p nv-weather-zip.php nv-weather-zip-orig.php wget http://incrediblepbx.com/nv-polly-install.tar.gz tar zxvf nv-polly-install.tar.gz rm -f nv-polly-install.tar.gz apt-get -y install libsox-fmt-mp3 ./install-polly-dialplan-wazo.sh nano -w pollytts.php
Once the pieces are in place and the editor opens, insert your Amazon key, secret, and region code. Then save the file: Ctrl-X, Y, then ENTER. Finally, you can try out the two sample applications on your PBX. Dial 951 for Yahoo News or 947 for Weather.
Originally published: Monday, May 1, 2017
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SECURITY ALERT: The Sangoma® Portal reportedly has been compromised. According to Sangoma’s Chief Operating Officer, customers’ root passwords were stored on Sangoma servers as a favor to customers to facilitate future support access by Sangoma staff. That procedure now has been discontinued. Although not acknowledged, the root passwords were apparently stored in unencrypted format unbeknownst to customers. More than a dozen customers have since reported their servers were compromised using their own root credentials. Sangoma maintains there is a "theoretical possibility" that their portal was the culprit although the COO indicates that they have been unable to find any evidence of an intrusion. Rootkit appears to be a word missing from the Sangoma lexicon. If you do business with Sangoma through their web portal, you are well advised to check your server immediately to determine if your PBX also has been compromised. Full details regarding breach detection and a link to Sangoma’s response are available on the PIAF Forum. If your server has been hacked, prudence would dictate rebuilding your server from the ground up. There was no mention whether Sangoma did the same after a previous unauthorized intrusion. As this incident reinforces, attempting to patch a compromised server is extremely risky. |
Support Issues. With any application as sophisticated as this one, you’re bound to have questions. Blog comments are a terrible place to handle support issues although we welcome general comments about our articles and software. If you have particular support issues, we encourage you to get actively involved in the PBX in a Flash Forums. It’s the best Asterisk tech support site in the business, and it’s all free! Please have a look and post your support questions there. Unlike some forums, the PIAF Forum is extremely friendly and is supported by literally hundreds of Asterisk gurus and thousands of users just like you. You won’t have to wait long for an answer to your question.
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the PBX in a Flash Forum.
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