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… Read More ›
With last week’s release of Incredible PBX 13-13 Lean with Asterisk® 13 and FreePBX® 13 GPL modules, it seemed like an opportune time to revisit the initial setup process of an Asterisk-based PBX. Configuring extensions, trunks, and routes are the fundamental steps in successfully interconnecting your PBX to the telecommunications network. So today we’ll walk through the initial setup process in some detail for those that are just getting started. And we think old-timers may find some hidden nuggets in… Read More ›
[iframe-popup id="4″] As many of you know, the Asterisk® 13.16 and 13.17 releases caused serious breakage with FreePBX® 12 GPL deployments. These have been resolved in the new Asterisk 13.18 release candidate, but it prompted us to do a little exploring for alternatives while many of you were partying at AstriCon in Orlando last week. To give credit where credit is due, the Sangoma developers have made some impressive improvements with their FreePBX 13 release. And now we’re pleased to… Read More ›
Let’s face it. It’s hard not to like the application development flexibility that Asterisk® offers, especially if you’re part of an organization that has very specific telephony needs. But the price you pay for "free" and putting all of your eggs in the Asterisk basket is painful. Here are a few of the hurdles that come to mind: security, NAT, one-way audio, remote users, CRM support, conferencing, painful upgrades to address frequent bug fixes, and, more generally, telephone management and… Read More ›
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.… Read More ›
There aren’t many VoIP discoveries that get us this excited about the future of telecom. But merging with 1.5 billion users plus Facebook’s enormous talent pool and technology resources is definitely something worthy of your attention. What a Facebook marriage with the VoIP platform could mean for the future of telecommunications is nothing short of earth-shattering. Few people still have home phones. Almost everyone has a Facebook account and a cellphone. If VoIP solutions for businesses fail to take those… Read More ›
We previously documented how to interconnect an Issabel PBX with 3CX to take advantage of the best of both worlds. Today, we’ll again use the Nerd Vittles free 3CX server offering and interconnect it with a Wazo PBX. An added benefit of using Wazo is the fact that you can set up redundant (and free) HA servers with Wazo in minutes. Once we get the pieces in place, from Wazo extensions, you’ll be able to call your 3CX Clients by… Read More ›
Many of us wear several hats during our business careers. One of those invariably is managing a community organization of some flavor. We frequently are asked for advice on what the ideal telephony solution would be for such an organization. The reason for the inquiries typically is because the Bell Sisters have now jacked up the cost of a single, business phone line to well over $100 a month. And that gets you local calls only unless you sign up… Read More ›