Sip - Tag - log - Nicholas Ward

☎️ Local Voice Agent

nicholas — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0500

In a previous post, I built a small telephone system with FreePBX and a low-cost SIP carrier, BulkVS. This gave me a real phone number, extensions, softphones, a ring group, and voicemail. This would serve as the perfect entry point for a self-hosted voice agent.

I have configured the system such that when my phone number is dialed, a voice describes a telephone menu where the caller can dial a selection:

☎️ VoIP

nicholas — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

I pay my share of the family phone plan ($15/mo), and in return I get unlimited texts, 1000 minutes of calls, and 1 GB of data. This is already extraordinarily cheap, but for how little I use the service I think I can do better, at least in terms of raw cost of owning a phone number on which I can make and receive voice calls. I can get the cost down to pennies a month, depending on how much time I spend in a phone call.