Then on top of this, your phone traffic is captured by the government, and every SMS ever sent or received is stored in carrier and government databases. But there’s a more private way to use the standard phone network, and this is using a technology called SIP and using this with a no-KYC provider. Today, I’m going to teach you about this really well-known technology used in businesses called SIP and VoIP, voice over IP. But it is a technology not really well-known for use with personal privacy. There’s a learning curve to using this technology, but I have solutions to ease that learning curve so the average person can utilize this method of communications.

If you’re interested in learning what this is all about, or if you heard me talk about it in prior videos, but you really didn’t understand what it was, this is the video for you. So stay right there. If you work for a company with phones that can dial other co-workers with extensions, you may have already used the technology we will talk about. But first, a little bit of history. In the past, businesses set up internal phone systems, and this was called a PBX system, or really, a private branch exchange. This was pretty commonplace even a decade ago, and PBX systems were typically proprietary hardware and quite expensive per phone.

Typical manufacturers of legacy PBX systems were Avaya, NEC, Nortel, Panasonic, and Toshiba. These phone systems communicated using standard RJ11 telephone lines. Here’s an example of such a legacy PBX system. When calling each other inside the office and on the same base station, you just use short extensions, but when you dial out to a normal public phone number, the call is directed by that base station to a normal phone number which is wired in to the base station. So back in the old days, the phone company just installs a bunch of RJ11 ports for each line, and then the installer of the PBX just wires those to the PBX base station.

Then on the phones, you tap on a line, and if it’s available, you can dial out to the PSDN, or you can call someone locally by extension. Today, if you’re still using this kind of old equipment, you probably can’t get it serviced. This is now considered legacy equipment, so the new technology that replaced it are devices using the Internet Protocol, or IP. IP-based devices use normal Ethernet network cables, the same ones used by your computer to access the Internet. Each phone is an IP client, just like a computer, but there’s a dedicated server on the network to handle calls.

This is now the typical setup in a business. The business gets a SIP server, and then the clients are called SIP clients. These types of hardware, by the way, do not allow texting, so it’s just really for calls. Now let’s learn about the term SIP. So what does SIP mean? While the communication occurs over normal network hardware, the devices need to communicate with each other using a signaling protocol. You don’t really need to understand how the SIP protocol works, but you need to know how SIP devices are organized. This protocol is just a common way for voice devices to ring each other and initiate a connection.

Not too different from when you use Skype or Zoom, for example, for video or calls. Although it is possible for a SIP phone to talk to another SIP phone directly, it is pretty difficult to program these to do that. So the actual equipment that coordinates the translation of extensions to IP addresses and the ringing of devices is a central SIP server. And yes, this is just a computer. In fact, many businesses run a free software called FreePBX on a computer to handle SIP. The usual way then is that whoever sets up the SIP server then sets up an internet connection with a voice over IP trunk provider that can trunk traffic directly to the public switched telephone network or PSDN.

There’s no wiring involved, unlike the old days. In a big company, this SIP server will be an actual computer in the server room handling the phone traffic. Now this is the business setup and not the home user setup. For many smaller businesses and for personal use, what many people do is connect to a voice over IP provider over the internet, which replaces that computer in the server room. So basically you have a virtual SIP server. The server is not at your location, but hosted by another company. There are many voice over IP providers that service businesses like Ring Central, Nextiva, Vonage, Grasshopper, and many others.

By the way, I also run one of these virtual voice over IP services with our Brax virtual phone service, though it is not for business, ours is for personal use, and I’ll explain this later. But the general operation of all these, including our service, is the same. Devices communicate with each other using the SIP protocol, though this time it goes through the internet. The voice over IP provider provides the SIP servers. Then just like before, if you need to talk to a PSDN phone number, your call will be directed by a trunk service to a PSDN carrier.

This is really no different than the big company with the big server in their server room. Voice over IP providers simply provide that for you so you don’t have the cost or the maintenance headache. Plus there are services which you cannot do with a SIP server directly, like SMS and even voicemail. Now, because many of these voice over IP providers I mentioned earlier service businesses, their pricing is not really suited. For personal use, you can check out their pricing, which they like to hide. But a typical price for a voice over IP provider from one of these companies is around $40 a month per person, even though they’re going to show like $30.

It’s not really true. So they’re much too expensive for what we need to use it for, which is privacy. This is why I set up my own voice over IP service that caters to this specific personal use market, which is a lot cheaper. Now let’s talk about the devices that can be used to connect to a SIP server. Whether you’re connecting to any of the virtual voice over IP providers or to your own SIP server or to our Brax virtual phone service, the devices are actually all compatible. Each device has to be programmed to connect.

And all that means is that the device has to be given credentials that are recognized by the SIP server. The typical credentials are based on a username, password, and the internet address of the SIP server, plus some other details like what the communication protocol is over the internet, things like UDP, IP, or TLS. Here’s an example of credentials we show for our service. Let me just show you an example of a SIP device that you program for SIP. And it has a base station, which is this. This connects to any ethernet port that is available on your router.

Then the handset unit, in this case, is cordless, so it can be elsewhere, but just at a distance that can be handled by this particular unit. It’s 2.4 GHz, so it should be able to handle a good distance away in the house. We actually sell this unit already pre-configured, so if you don’t want to do any kind of phone programming, you can just plug it into the network and to power, and you’re done. What are we looking at here with this configuration? Well, folks, you’re looking at a landline. Yes, this is cordless, but it’s still a standard landline like the old days.

The advantage of this kind of setup is that, of course, it always works and no special configuration is required. It will ring here first, and if you just use this, then, of course, you have no mobile phone for this line. This device communicates via the internet provided by your DSL provider, typically. What I’m showing you here is a very basic explanation. Now, let’s proceed to a more capable solution. When you’re doing this same thing, but I’ll use the Brax virtual phone service as an example. First, the Brax virtual phone service is a no-KYC provider, meaning we give you a phone line without asking for any kind of ID.

This is actually quite unique and pretty hard to find. This means that the phone number you get has no records shown that can be retrieved by any third party, including the government, on who is using this phone number. All they may discover is that it is a Brax virtual phone service, though that is not immediately apparent. From here, I will show you that this service is much more flexible than I’ve shown you so far. Instead of a hardware SIP phone like this grand stream, you can make and receive calls using a SIP mobile app.

All you need is internet access, and then you can use SIP app on mobile. This service can also use a computer SIP app. And in addition, we can give you voicemail that we keep on the SIP server, so it can be accessed from any device. And voicemail can also be forwarded to email. Even the call can be forwarded to another number. Now, our service offers SMS, and this is also not a given. Most services do not allow personal SMS. They may offer a business SMS as a separate service, and more expensive, of course. So again, this is a unique offering.

You have full SMS, and the SMS can be received on mobile using the Braxme app, or you can send and receive SMS on the SIP apps. Also, on Braxme My SMS, MMS or media is supported. This, however, is not available on any SIP app. In this example here, I show you communications using a SIP app called SIPnetic. And here’s an example. This is only on Android. The other popular app we use is Lynfone, and here’s an example of that. The advantage of Lynfone is that the same app works on all platforms. iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, iOS, etc.

And even Linux. Basically, if your phone has an internet connection, it can use these apps. For Windows, there is also an app called MicroSIP, and it looks like this. Now, this is the learning curve with using SIP. The way it works, by default, only one of the SIP connections will ring. If you’re using a landline device, then if that is the first device registered, that will ring first. If you want to have the mobile app ring, then I would turn off the landline phone. This is the way SIP works. Each device has to register to the server and say, I’m here and ready to accept calls.

Multiple devices cannot do that. So usually, it causes issues when there are multiple SIP devices using a single line. You can, of course, use multiple lines and have one to be a forwarding line, and that solves this issue. The mobile device can be on a forwarded line, which can also be a normal SIM card phone line. The best-case scenario for using SIP in a seamless way is to use a landline at home, then use voicemail when you are not home. The voicemail can be forwarded via email. Then you can reply to the party using SMS or texting.

This can be done using a single line. Then use another line to call back if you need to do that. Nowadays, most people text anyway, so it depends on the need to call back via voice. Our particular SIP service can forward the call. If you forward to another phone number, then it’s like double call minutes. Plus, that other number may have its own fees as well. You can turn forwarding on and off an infinite number of times, and it is done on the Braxme app, and it’s the same place for other settings relating to Brax virtual phone service.

So this is pretty easy to change. By default, if you’re in a plan with voice calls, you automatically get voicemail. In our particular case, you will be able to go to your SIP device and dial star 97, and that should connect you to the voicemail service. You’ll need your mailbox password for this, which is in your account info. The neat thing about our voicemail is that it can be forwarded to email. This is the natural operation of the Brax virtual phone service when using a SIP hardware. First, the phone will ring the first registered SIP device, either a physical landline or mobile app.

If the SIP device is not reachable or busy, or it rings with no answer, then the user is directed to voicemail after four rings. At that point, if you have voicemail forwarding via email, then that is triggered next. If you have forwarding to another number, then that disables voicemail, although the voicemail of the receiving phone number would take over that function. The general weakness of many voiceover IP apps is SMS. The weakness is that the SIP app may not be registered because of a lost internet connection, so it may not receive the SMS, or if you’re using a landline device that has no SMS.

So SMS via SIP app is not 100%, particularly for receiving. It’s good for sending SMS. Again, an example of a SIP app for this is SIPnetic. Now, here we’ve solved the problem by using the Braxme app. Braxme has a feature called My SMS. So if you can run Braxme either on a browser or as an app or as a progressive web app on any platform or device, you can always see My SMS. My SMS is a full-featured SMS interface. It shows 100% of all SMS sent and received, and it cannot miss any of them. This is because the information is pulled from the carrier in real time when you view them.

My SMS also supports MMS, so texted media can be seen. MMS is not supported by any SIP app that I know of, including SIPnetic. Because My SMS is reliable in showing all SMS at any time, and it can also send SMS, then this definitely is going to cover your SMS needs while having the advantage of being able to view My SMS from any device or any browser. And for added insurance, Brax Virtual Phone SMS can be forwarded to another phone line and also forwarded to email. Now, let’s talk about a special privacy trick, and it’s called SIP to SIP Calling.

As I explained at the beginning, SIP is typically used in businesses to replace the legacy PBX, which by nature can call any extension on the same PBX. Well, this is the same thing when using a Brax Virtual Phone with SIP. You automatically get an extension number with Brax Virtual Phone, and so you can call another person on Brax Virtual Phone if you know their extension and you’re on the same server. Well, this may not be a big deal. Let me tell you a little surprising detail here. Let’s say you install a SIP landline at your older parent’s house, and they don’t use mobile phones.

Then you have your own Brax Virtual Phone service, either with a landline or a SIP mobile app. If you call your parent’s landline by extension, this is actually a direct SIP to SIP call. For which, A, there is no charge, it does not use call minutes, and B, it bypasses the PSDN so it doesn’t register with government or carrier database. And C, it doesn’t get recorded at all in the transaction data of the SIP server. In other words, SIP to SIP Calling has no records whatsoever. It’s pretty much the same as calling a coworker on an extension in your office.

No records of that either. This is an absolute win for privacy, especially if two parties need to talk regularly via voice. You can actually do that without using any complex app setup. Just two landlines talking by extension. And remember that SIP Calling and texting via Brax Virtual Phone is done with no KYC to begin with. So even if you went to the normal PSDN to communicate with other people, there will be less data known. Since there is no caller ID revealing who you are or any identifying data attached to the phone number. Having two privacy oriented people talk using SIP is amazingly private voice calling.

You can do a voice over IP service using forwarding, email and SMS on Braxme without even having any SIP devices. The necessity for SIP is because of a need to make a call. Some of you can just call using some other number with that caller ID and that can also suffice. But the SIP solution is a way to expand your communications capability so you have a robust way of handling calls and texts. The main takeaway though is that using voice over IP with a no KYC provider is a great way to make yourself disappear from the phone network since basically this kind of line is not attributed to your name.

Folks, as I mentioned in this video, I created some products to support our need for privacy and these products are available on our platform on Braxme. There are several products there that were created to support our privacy battle. I’ve talked about Brax virtual phone. We also have Braxmail so you can give each platform a different email address. One account can handle that. We have the Google phone so that the link to the Google ID is eliminated. We also have a VPN service bytes VPN to protect your IP addresses. Join the over 100,000 people who are on our app, all of which are interested in privacy and talk about these issues daily.

Thank you very much for watching and see you next time. [tr:trw].

See more of Rob Braxman Tech on their Public Channel and the MPN Rob Braxman Tech channel.