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The Most Versatile VoIP Provider: FREE PORTING
JUST RELEASED: Visit the Incredible PBX WikiVerizon 5G Service for $25/month with Unlimited Everything
It takes a lot to get us excited about a cellular offering these days. One feature that always gets our attention is a plan that offers unlimited texting and unlimited data within the U.S. plus unlimited calling to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. So we’re excited to introduce Visible, Verizon’s very own MVNO. A few disclaimers are in order before we get into the specifics.
First, as with all MVNO’s, your usage is subject to throttling in high usage areas. So, if you regularly attend events with 100,000 other folks such as the Super Bowl, or the World Series, or the Masters, an MVNO cellular plan may prove disappointing. Second, we are an avid Visible user, and we offer a signup link that reduces our bill if you sign up. We do this to defray the costs of bringing you articles such as this one. Third, you only get the $25/month pricing if we can persuade 3 other like-minded readers to sign up for service. Otherwise, the monthly cost is $40. But we’re not too worried about that once you read this article. UPDATE: We now have over 60 people in our plan. Your first month of service is only $5 using our signup link.1 There are no signup fees or long-term contracts of any kind.
While Visible originally worked only with iPhones, most current generation Android phones can now be used as well including the Google Pixel 3 or newer, Samsung Galaxy S9 or newer, the Moto G7 or newer, and most other 4G and 5G phones that can operate on Verizon’s VoLTE (Voice Over LTE) network. Check your phone’s compatibility here.
Now, the good news. Visible uses Verizon’s nationwide state-of-the-art 4G/5G network. Your download speeds are capped at a whopping 200 Mbps. Tethering is unlimited but speed is capped at 5 Mbps unless you do a little educational surfing. When it comes to performance and coverage in the U.S., Verizon is the leader of the pack. AT&T’s Cricket MVNO has a competing plan for $55 a month with a 5 Mbps speed cap. T-Mobile’s MVNOs have no offerings with unlimited high-speed data at the $25 price point. The best deal is probably Mint Mobile with 30GB of high speed data with tethering capped at 5GB for $30 a month.
Finally, let us walk you through how the signup process will work. First, you sign up for new service here. After you register, Visible will send you a SIM via overnight delivery. When you receive the SIM, log into your Visible account with a web browser and follow the setup steps.
Here’s the important part. After your service is up and running either through our signup link or independently, you can then Join the Party Plan Here and then participate in what Visible calls their Party Pay Plan. You’ll get your own bill for $25 each month, and no further interaction from us or other members of the group. Please post a comment below just to let others know this isn’t a scam. We can also send you the signup link if you have problems signing up. We will not share your email address. For those that already have a Visible account and are paying more than $25 a month for service, you, too, are more than welcome to Join the Party. Please post a comment below confirming your interest. What’s the catch? There isn’t one. We all save $15 a month on our Visible bill every month forever, and we all continue to be billed and pay for our own service independently. Think of it as adding kids to your cellphone plan except you never have to pay your kids’ cellphone bills.
Come join the party! You won’t be disappointed.
Originally published: Wednesday, February 17, 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.
- You’re also eligible for a $100 Mastercard Prepaid Virtual Account if you transfer your existing cellphone number when you sign up. [↩]
The Ultimate Android Phone: Just $99 if you hurry
If you follow Nerd Vittles, you already know all of the benefits of using an Android phone in the VoIP-centric world. You can make free calls without a cellular provider by connecting to any WiFi network with Android’s Google Voice app. You can connect to Incredible PBX® or any Asterisk® PBX and function as if you were sitting at your desk in your Covid-free office. You can join a virtual private network using OpenVPN without spending a dime. And you can play an endless collection of games for almost nothing.
Now there’s more. Suppose there was a recyclable Android phone with a replaceable battery that could be repaired or replaced even with a cracked screen for just $59 including free shipping in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, and Singapore. Suppose it came with a 4-year warranty and 3 full years of free Android updates plus Google Play Store support. Suppose it included NFC Google Pay compatibility, dual SIM support, USB-C charging, and a microSD slot for expansion. Did we mention an Octa Core processor, dual cameras, a 6.1″ HD+ display, and a headphone jack? Meet the Teracube 2e.
The icing on the cake is you can snag one of these babies for $99 if you hurry. Here’s the link.
Originally published: Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Need help with Asterisk? Visit the VoIP-info Forum.
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.
Frozen in Time: Sangoma at a Crossroads or the Cliff
We are fast approaching the 18 month anniversary since the mass exodus of talent from Sangoma and Digium. During that time, Asterisk® and FreePBX® have languished in limbo with FreePBX commercial modules mired in discontinued encryption methods and the Asterisk and FreePBX feature set frozen. Sangoma’s acquisition of Digium gave the company a well-respected business phone system in Switchvox® while relegating FreePBX deployments with commercial modules to second-class citizen status.
Now Sangoma has a difficult and expensive decision to make. In order to continue to deploy FreePBX commercial modules on a current operating system and PHP platform, they are facing a multi-million dollar investment to retool all of the commercial modules using an entirely different encryption platform which will generate additional headaches with their module repositories which now must manage and maintain two different sets of modules. Think of it as migrating from an English-based operation to one in which the customer base speaks either English or French, but not both. In the meantime, Asterisk 17 is fast approaching end-of-life while Asterisk 16 is getting long in the tooth with only minor fixes of late. And there’s FreePBX 15 which hasn’t seen significant upgrades since the departure of the former Schmoozecom staff in April of 2019.
While we have never agreed with the Sangoma CEO about much of anything, let’s take over the management reins for a moment and look at the landscape. The Digium acquisition coupled with some other purchases has left Sangoma with a mountain of debt in the middle of a global pandemic. Coronavirus also has forced many businesses to reassess their long-term office strategy. With nearly everyone on the planet now carrying a smartphone and most current employees having high-speed Internet connectivity at home neither of which the company has to pay for, does a fancy office for every employee still make good business sense? When you have a well-positioned business phone offering in Switchvox, does it make good business sense to continue to pump boatloads of money into a competing FreePBX commercial product simply to preserve its functionality? At the same time, Sangoma’s open source Asterisk and FreePBX products need a serious shot in the arm to remain viable. For example, FreePBX 15 with its User Control Panel won’t run on CentOS 8, and CentOS 7 reaches EOL status in December.
So here’s our first act as Sangoma CEO. Convert all of the existing FreePBX commercial modules into open source, GPL code while offering existing FreePBX commercial module customers a 50% discount to migrate to Switchvox within the next six months. We would stagger conversion of the commercial modules to GPL code by releasing three on the first day of every month. This would keep Sangoma in the news for many months to come. The move would not only restore Asterisk and FreePBX to their well-deserved position at the forefront of the open source community, but it would also give Switchvox a leg up in the commercial phone system marketplace. By keeping the identity of the monthly releases a secret, it would build much needed momentum for Sangoma’s open source offerings while reinforcing Sangoma’s commitment to the open source community. Give it some thought, Sangoma!
Originally published: Tuesday, September 8, 2020
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.
Android Alert: Unmasking Your Hidden SIP Phone
Perhaps the single most important component in the VoIP toolbox for any PBX deployment that includes traveling users is the softphone whether it’s deployed on notebook computers or smartphones. We’re kicking off football season with reviews of some of our favorite SIP softphones for mobile users. We’ve previously written about Linphone and Zoiper and Telephone. We’ve also sung the praises of earlier releases of Google’s Pixel smartphone which makes a perfect VoIP companion even without a cellphone provider. Today we’re passing along an Android tip from @w1ve on the VoIP-Info.org Forum for anyone needing PBX connectivity while away from the home or office. And it won’t cost you a dime so long as you already have an Android smartphone with either a Wi-Fi connection or a data plan with any cellphone carrier.
You may be unaware that Android has been shipping with a native SIP phone since as far back as Android Marshmallow which will be five years old next month. Some phone manufacturers such as Chinese-owned Lenovo/Moto disable the SIP functionality, but many do not including Google, Samsung, and OnePlus. If you’ve deployed an Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC server in the Cloud with a PJsip extension, the beauty of this discovery is that you’ll always have VoIP connectivity through your PBX with only a WiFi connection. No SIM is required!
To determine if your Android smartphone includes the SIP dialer, simply open the native Phone app and tap the three vertical bar icon at the top of the dialer menu. From the pull-down menu, choose Settings, Calls, and Calling Accounts. If your Android smartphone includes support for the native SIP dialer, there will be a SIP Accounts option in the menu.
TIP: Even if the SIP Menu doesn’t appear on your smartphone, it may be that the manufacturer simply disabled the menu without actually trashing the SIP functionality as Lenovo has done. To determine whether the menu has simply been hidden, install QuickShortcutMaker from the Play Store. Run the app and scroll down and tap the SIP Settings option and click Test. It should bring up the SIP Accounts menu shown below.
Tapping SIP Accounts and then + icon will open a dialog to add a SIP account to your phone.
With an Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC server, the entries should look like the following:
- Username: Your PJsip extension
- Password: Your PJsip password
- Server: FQDN of Your PBX
- Optional Settings -> Port: 5061
Keep in mind that an FQDN for the Server address is required with an Incredible PBX 2020 PUBLIC server. If your server is using a dynamic IP address, you also would want to configure the FQDN using a Dynamic DNS service and refresh that FQDN periodically on your PBX using a cron job. Once you’ve entered your credentials, tap SAVE to activate the SIP account on your smartphone. It should then appear in the SIP Accounts window as shown above.
Next, you have some choices to make as to how the SIP account is actually used. As you can see from our setup (shown above), we allow outbound calls using either the SIM card or the SIP phone, and the phone will prompt for a choice whenever you make a call. We also have activated Inbound SIP calling which, as the dialog explains, uses some battery life. Finally, if you elect to use a chan_SIP extension on your PBX, make certain that you have enabled NAT Mode in the Advanced tab, or you will experience one-way or no audio on calls. This is not required with PJsip extensions. One of the other beauties of PJsip extensions is that you can assign this extension to multiple SIP devices including softphones and desktop phones so long as you increase the Max Contacts entry in the Advanced tab for the PJsip extension. In this way, you can answer incoming calls on your desktop phone when you’re at home or in the office and answer the same calls on your smartphone when you’re out and about. Enjoy!
Originally published: Tuesday, September 1, 2020
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.
2019 Technology RoundUp: What’s Hot and What’s Not
As 2019 comes to a close, we wanted to pause briefly and share some of our discoveries from this past year on all things tech. More specifically, let’s chat about solar, electric vehicles, cutting the cord from cable TV, streaming services including music and video, and cellphone data plans. We hope some of you will chime in and share your own discoveries from 2019. We’ll also apologize in advance if some of this discussion is U.S.-centric. It just happens to be our home turf.
What Are You Waiting For: GO SOLAR!
Let me begin by noting that the average electric bill on our 4,000+ square foot home with four heat pumps, two electric water heaters, and three pool pumps typically ran $500 a month prior to 2018. After installation of 50 solar panels on our roof, our average electric bill for the first six months of 2019 was about $10 a month. Installation cost of the system was about $60,000, but there was a 30% tax credit from the feds and a 25% tax credit (spread over six years) from South Carolina which reduced the actual out-of-pocket cost to about $30,000.
If you’re new to solar, be advised that most states have given utility companies a monopoly on electricity which means your local energy company makes the rules on how many solar panels you can install and remain connected to the grid. In the case of South Carolina, you cannot generate more electricity than you actually use in a year, but, for energy you generate, the South Carolina model is they pay you the same rate they charge for electricity. Given our current annual cost of $1,000 versus $6,000 in the good old days, our best estimate is the break-even date will be about six years from installation date. After that, it’s a $5,000 a year gravy train with solar. Coupling these utility savings with a nearly 70% reduction in our property taxes moving from Atlanta, Georgia to Charleston, we can no longer afford to move despite the fact that a few South Carolina residents still are fighting the Civil War.
What Are You Waiting For: GO ELECTRIC!
Some of you may have followed our love-hate relationship with Tesla during 2017 and 2018. Sorry to say that Elon Musk is his own worst enemy when it comes to promising far more than he can actually deliver. As much as we loved Tesla, we parted ways when a sloppy repair job totally crippled the car in the middle of nowhere leaving us hanging for over a month while Tesla attempted to diagnose the cause. It turned out they had bent a pin in replacing the big screen in the car, and it shorted out almost every function in the vehicle. The lack of a local service center coupled with the obvious shortcomings in diagnosing a system fault in the vehicle caused us to move on. HINT: Don’t fly to Mars with Elon. Tesla never came close on Elon’s full self-driving (FSD), and they still appear to be years away. We’ve joined the lawsuit to recover our FSD purchase. That and $5 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
Despite Tesla’s shortcomings, we didn’t give up on electric vehicles and purchased the First Edition of Jaguar’s I-Pace. What a difference a quality interior makes! The I-Pace is fairly comparable to the Tesla Model S in price, performance, and range. While not as refined as Tesla’s current AutoPilot, Jaguar’s Lane Keeping Assist is extremely reliable in highway driving and more than adequate on well-marked roads in town. Our only real complaint is the lack of a charging network comparable to Tesla’s in the southeastern United States. But Volkswagen’s new Electrify America coupled with ChargePoint looks promising for 2020.
If you’re not a car nut (like us) and just want reliable transportation at a reasonable cost to get back and forth to work and for around-town driving, an electric vehicle will save you a lot of money. You really can’t beat a Nissan Leaf for about $30,000. For a few cents more, you can extend the range to over 200 miles, and you can add Lane Keeping Assist that is almost as good as a Tesla. Add a 240v NEMA 1450 outlet in your garage for about $500, and you can add about 20 miles of range for every hour of charge at a fraction of the cost of gasoline. You also can get the car serviced at any local Nissan dealership, and most also provide free charging. 50 kWh commercial DC quick chargers can provide an 80% charge in less than an hour.
What Are You Waiting For: CUT THE CORD!
Comcast reportedly lost a quarter million TV subscribers in both Q2 and Q3 of 2019. AT&T has lost five million subscribers to DirecTV and U-Verse since 2016. Price gouging finally has led millions of cable and satellite TV subscribers to cut the cord and say enough is enough. If you haven’t tried the 2019 edition of yesteryear’s TV rabbit ears and you live in an area with local TV stations within a 50-75 mile radius of your home, you’re in for quite a surprise. Over-the-air (OTA) HDTV broadcasts now are actually comparable or better than Comcast and DirecTV.
Did we mention all over-the-air HDTV broadcasts are free?
Choosing an HDTV Antenna. As you might have guessed, antennas come in all shapes and sizes. An outside antenna is light-years better than any indoor model but, if you live in an apartment where an outside antenna isn’t feasible, then visit your local WalMart and purchase three or four inside HDTV antennas of various shapes and sizes including some HDTV rabbit ears. Bring them all home and try the various antennas with a TV to see which provides the best reception and most stations. Take the others back for a refund. In almost all cases, we’ve found the HDTV rabbit ears (under $10) work as well as the more expensive models which can range in price between $8 and $50. Our favorite outdoor antenna is the Clearstream 4 for under $100 from WalMart. Old-timers will be pleased to know that the days of snowy pictures and ghost images are a thing of the past with HDTV.
Recording Shows. If all you care about is watching local TV stations (commercials and all), then you can stop reading here. But if you like time shifting and skipping commercials, then a TiVo OTA DVR is the best game in town. TiVo is proud of their service and loves to charge a $15 monthly fee for access on top of the $200+ cost of the device. But our favorite is a $350 refurbished TiVo Roamio from Amazon that includes a lifetime subscription at no additional cost. If you’re worried about the reliability of a refurbished product, you can buy the Amazon 3-year protection plan for $33.99. We did. Once you use a TiVo unit with automatic skipping of commercials, you’ll rarely watch live TV broadcasts again. It’s that good.
Streaming TiVo Content to Other Devices. One nifty addition for your TiVO OTA unit is the ability to stream the content to devices other than the TV to which the TiVo unit is connected. The trick is to find a TiVo Stream device (about $150). It requires a wired Internet connection on the same subnet as your wired TiVo Roamio OTA unit. Once you have the unit in hand, contact TiVo with the serial number of your TiVo stream unit, and they will activate it. You then can stream any of your TiVo live or recorded content to up to four iPhones, iPads, and Android devices simultaneously. The streaming works on both your local WiFi network as well as any remote location using either WiFi or cellular service. Very slick!
Alternative Streaming Options. Another streaming alternative worth considering is TabloTV. The units start at $150 and are available at WalMart, Best Buy, and Amazon. You then add your own USB storage device and antenna. Finally, you need a subscription for the TabloTV Guide. The lifetime subscription is $150. The device can stream to computers using a web browser, iOS and Android phones and tablets as well as Roku devices and TVs. Our results with TabloTV have been hit and miss. On the same network as our TiVo machine, the TabloTV WiFi streams regularly experience pauses and drop-outs while the TiVo streams rarely do. Whether you choose a TabloTV or not, be sure to sign up for email delivery of their newsletter. It’s by far the best in the cut-the-cord industry.
Supplementing Local Content. Cut-the-cord commercial streaming services are booming as you might imagine. These services provide streaming content of what was traditional cable TV programming including local and cable news channels, sports channels, and commercial add-ons such as HBO and ShowTime. These streaming services typically support web access via a browser as well as iOS, Android, and Roku devices and smart TVs. Our current favorite is YouTube TV which offers 70+ channels for $50 a month with a free trial. Assuming you have a decent Internet connection, you’ll never return to Comcast or DirecTV after YouTube TV.
Got a Kid in College? Paying college tuition and expenses is one of the most painful periods for many families, but there’s a silver lining. Your student qualifies for unlimited music streaming plus a Hulu subscription plus a ShowTime subscription, and you get all three for only $5 a month by setting up a student Spotify account. Your first 3 months are free, and it’s renewable for up to 4 years. There’s more good news. Parents can share the credentials in a different location because the hours of your listening and viewing will rarely, if ever, coincide with those of your college son or daughter.
The Granddaddy of Streaming.Services If you only can choose one, the streaming service that most folks probably will not want to live without is Netflix. Your first 30 days are free, and plans start at $8.99 a month. That gets you one simultaneous, non-HD stream to a device of your choice. You can move up to HD streaming for $12.99 for a single stream or $14.99 for simultaneous streams to four devices. Smart TVs, computers, tablets, phones, and Roku devices are all supported. If you happen to have rental property, next to WiFi, Netflix always ranks at the top of the list of most requested amenities.
Our Must-Have Traveling Companion. The Roku Streaming Stick+ may just be the best under $50 purchase you ever make. Whether you travel or just have older not-so-smart televisions at home, so long as you have access to an HDMI port, all of your streaming services are just a click away on any TV. The only setup required when you reach your destination is plugging in your WiFi credentials. Then Netflix, Hulu, ShowTime, Comcast, Spectrum, and TabloTV immediately come to life.
Best Cellphone Plan on the Planet. If T-Mobile is supported in your neck of the woods, you won’t want to miss MintMobile, the best cellphone plan on the planet. You always get unlimited U.S. calling and messaging, and then you can choose the amount of monthly 4G LTE data you need. For the first three months, you get 12GB of monthly 4G LTE data for only $15 a month. After that, you can sign up for an annual plan at their standard 3-month rates: $15 a month for 3GB, $20 a month for 8GB, or $25 a month for 12GB. It’s an unbelievable deal compared to the Bell Sisters. Use our signup link to share the wealth with the Nerd Vittles staff. Merry Christmas to all.
Originally published: Monday, December 23, 2019
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 Very Best Cellphone Plans and Smartphones for 2019
You can read reviews of the best cellphone plans and smartphones until your eyes glaze over and still end up scratching your head when it comes to making a decision. Our approach is a little different. It’s about making smart choices based upon the specific requirements for you and your family. Let’s get the obvious criteria out of the way first. The cellphone provider that you choose has to work in your home, on your way to work, at your office, and in the places to which you typically travel. In the United States, that used to rule out everyone except AT&T, Verizon, and their MVNOs. Not any more. T-Mobile’s coverage now rivals that of the Bell Sisters, and Sprint isn’t far behind. The second important criteria is how many phones you need. If it’s a plan just for you or you and your spouse, it’s a very different landscape than finding suitable providers for a family of four or five. Age also matters. If it’s just two of you and one of you is at least 55 years old, there’s at least one incredible deal. Another important consideration is how much of your cellular usage is from locations with good Wi-Fi coverage. With most providers and newer smartphones, WiFi usage doesn’t cost you anything when it comes to your monthly cellphone bill. And, last but not least, is a careful analysis of how you use your phones. Binge watching Netflix and sending hundreds of high resolution photos every day through cellular connections is very different than using a phone primarily to make calls, send text messages, and retrieve text-based email. Equally important is whether you need your smartphone to also provide Internet connectivity for a tethered computer or tablet.
Let’s get the easy choices out of the way first. If you’re shopping for no more than two phones and one of you is at least 55 years old and one or both of you consumes enormous amounts of data without WiFi every month, T-Mobile is the hands-down winner at $70 a month with no tax/fees for two phones with unlimited talk as well as text and 50GB of data in 210+ countries. You may wish to consider the T-Mobile One Plus add-on if you do considerable traveling or regularly use tethering.
Excluding WiFi, the average cell phone user today consumes between 2GB and 8GB of data per month. If you have an existing cellphone plan, check your bill and see where your usage typically falls. If you’re within the range of 3GB and 12GB per phone per month with no WiFi coverage, then MintMobile’s $15 (3GB), $20 (8GB), and $25 (12GB) plans with unlimited talk and text using the T-Mobile network are the clear winner. HotSpot tethering with a PC is allowed. The only wrinkle is having to pay for a year of service after your 3-month trial ends.
If you’re part of a family of four or five with heavy cellphone usage, the best "unlimited" deal is probably Cricket Wireless which is an AT&T subsidiary and uses the AT&T network. If you don’t mind data speeds reduced to 3 Mbps with unlimited streaming at 480p, then their $100/month plan for four phones is a great deal even with the usual AT&T throttling after 22GB of data usage per month. Add a fifth phone for $25. Tethering is an extra $10/phone.
If Sprint works well in your surroundings and you have your own compatible phones, then Sprint’s Unlimited Kickstart offering is worth a careful look. Up to 5 lines can be purchased for $25/month each, but there is no guarantee as to network speeds, streaming is limited to 480p, and there is no tethering. You can move up to their Unlimited Basic Plan with up to 5 phones for a total of $100/month plus taxes and fees for 2 to 5 phones until June 30, 2020.
MetoPCS from T-Mobile has an offer similar to Sprint’s for 4 lines with unlimited data up to 35GB/month for $100/month with no taxes or additional fees. Pricing escalates to $40/line for two phones and $30/line for three. Tethering is not supported.
If Verizon is your preference, the least costly unlimited plan is offered by their Visible subsidiary at $40/month with data speeds limited to 5 Mbps and video streaming limited to 480p DVD quality. Tethering is permitted. iPhones and Galaxy S9/S9+ phones are supported. Or you can purchase for $99 or swap any Android phone for the Visible R2 phone from ZTE.
Things get murkier and more expensive from here. One consideration we haven’t touched upon with the low cost providers is bundling. Depending upon your Internet service provider and cable TV provider, the cost of your cellphone plan can change dramatically. For example, AT&T bundles DirecTV service for 4 TVs plus 4 cellphones sharing 15GB of monthly data for $200/month with lots of fine print. Xfinity/Comcast mobile service on Verizon’s network is available to existing Xfinity Internet customers for $12/GB with no line access fees on up to 5 smartphones. Or you can sign up for "unlimited" service at $45/phone with 20GB throttling. Spectrum has a similar mobile offer using Verizon at $14/GB or $45/phone for Spectrum Internet customers. And Google offers their GoogleFi service for $20/phone plus $10/GB of data actually used. Additional lines are $15. Google uses both T-Mobile and Sprint for service.
The elephant in the room with all of these cellphone plans is data throttling. All of the providers do it with impunity, and the short answer is you’ll simply have to choose a provider whose terms of service you can live with. While T-Mobile’s 50GB cap is considerably higher than AT&T’s 22GB, there are plenty of weasel words in T-Mobile’s terms that allow them to do what is necessary to "protect" their network. On the other hand, AT&T actually has locations (including ours) where data throttling reportedly isn’t used at all. We actually have a MiFi device on AT&T’s network that, during some months, has recorded over 100GB of data usage without throttling. So the bottom line is your mileage may vary, and it behooves you to shop around until you find a provider with whom you are comfortable based upon your own usage patterns.
We haven’t touched upon choosing a smartphone up until now. We all have our favorites and some providers have extremely favorable pricing if you bundle phones as part of your initial signup. If you don’t mind a 2-year-old model of an iPhone, these often can be free. The same holds for older Android top tier phones from Samsung and other providers. Just last week, Google offered its latest Pixel phones at half price for new GoogleFi customers. Whatever we listed today would probably be old news before you finished reading about it. We will mention one incredibly versatile Android phone, and that’s Motorola’s one-year-old Corning® Gorilla® glass, unlocked Moto G6 which can be found for under $200. In appearance it is indistinguishable from Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Edge, and it compares favorably to almost every feature in Apple’s latest $1,000+ iPhone with the possible exception of the camera (see photo above). It’s compatible with all of the carriers mentioned above except Visible. As with many of the newer smartphones, the G6 supports Wi-Fi calling as well as OpenVPN connectivity.
Originally published: Monday, May 6, 2019
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.
Cell Phone Tips for Spring Break and International Travel
With Spring Break upon us and Summer Vacations just around the corner, we wanted to briefly review some of your cellphone and data options for those that might be planning a trip outside the United States. If you’re only going as far as Mexico, Canada, or the U.S. Virgin Islands, then your existing cellular provider in the U.S. may have you covered at no additional cost. If your provider is not AT&T, then check with your carrier. And speaking of AT&T, if you’ll only be outside these covered areas for a brief time, then you may wish to consider enabling AT&T’s International Day Pass which costs you nothing until you use it. On days that you use it in over 100 countries, it’s $10/day with the same talk, text, and data options you currently have in the U.S. No, it’s not a bargain for a 60-day vacation, but it’s a pretty good deal for a week or so when you only need cell service for a few days. No changes in your current AT&T plan are necessary other than enabling the International Day Pass feature. Click on the Get Started Link to enable the service. Be sure to read the fine print.
Once you get past the options in the first paragraph, most of the other economical choices for cell phone and data coverage internationally involve swapping out the SIM card in your phone with a country-specific SIM card from a local provider. The first step is to make absolutely certain that your cell phone is unlocked before you hop on a plane. The procedure varies with different providers so you’ll need to investigate what steps are required. Be sure to also decipher how to verify that your phone is unlocked. Again, with AT&T, it’s a simple matter of visiting their web site and filling out a form. Within 24 hours, you should be good to go.
Now comes the hard part, choosing an alternate provider meeting your travel requirements. This turns on a number of factors such as whether callers in the U.S. need to contact you using a U.S. phone number. If so, then the first paragraph is your best bet if you need to be reached on your existing phone number. If any U.S. phone number will suffice (and you can always forward your cellphone number to this new number), then using an Android phone or iPhone, there’s an easy solution if you have Wi-Fi access or some cellphone data to burn. Simply use a Google Voice phone number and associate it with the new Android or iPhone Google Voice app on your phone. Be sure to enable WiFi/Mobile Data calling in GV Settings, and you’re good to go with almost any smart phone with 4G service. With Wi-Fi, no SIM card is required. Just put your phone in Airplane Mode and enjoy free calling back to the U.S. and Canada.
The next issue to consider is whether you need to make frequent calls or send frequent text messages to those in the U.S. while you are away. If so, then the best choice we’ve found without Wi-Fi access is Orange Holiday Europe.1 Simply buy the $50 card and put it in your cellphone on the day you wish to begin your service. It buys you 10GB of data, 2 hours of calls, and 1000 text messages to almost any phone in the world from 30 European countries including the U.K. Once activated, the card is good for 14 days and includes tethering. It can be renewed for an additional 21.70€ (about $25) which adds another 14 days with an additional 10GB of data, 120 minutes of calls, and another 1,000 SMS messages.
If the phone number of your calls doesn’t matter and you can also take advantage of Google Voice for free calling to and from the U.S., then all you really need is the cheapest SIM card you can find in the country you’re visiting. One word of advice from our frequent traveler friends is don’t buy the SIM card in the airport where they typically are two to five times as expensive. To give you an example, a SIM card with 5GB of data in Madrid can be had for about 10€ per week. For iPhone users, a more flexible SIM card that looked appealing to us was Gigsky which offers regional SIM cards for anywhere in the world. Enjoy your vacation!
Originally published: Monday, March 25, 2019
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.
- Many of our purchase links refer users to Amazon when we find their prices are competitive for the recommended products. Nerd Vittles receives a small referral fee from Amazon to help cover the costs of our blog. We never recommend particular products solely to generate Amazon commissions. However, when pricing is comparable or availability is favorable, we support Amazon because Amazon supports us. [↩]
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.
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