[comp.dcom.telecom] Multi-Line Voicemail Boards

trebor@uunet.uu.net (Robert J Woodhead) (11/07/90)

A couple of months ago I inquired about voicemail boards for the PC.
Thanks to all that responded.  I ended up getting a Bigmouth board
from Talking Technologies of Alameda, CA [415-522-3800] for about
$225.  This board turns any old PC into a voicemail center, and the
menu-driven software that comes with it (quite powerful) lets you set
up voicemail boxes, phone trees, do voice questionaires, store and
auto-forward voicemail, etc, etc, etc.

I'm quite happy with it, but now I have a slightly more complicated
bit of hardware on my Xmas shopping list.  What I need is a board that
has the following features:

* Can handle four or more calls simultaneously.
* DMTF detection, audio recording and playback.
* PC compatible
* Hopefully buffers incoming and outgoing sampled audio on the board
  so as to reduce the strain on the host machine.
* Good low-level interface software library, in UNIX/XENIX if possible.
* Also, it would be nice if more than one of these boards could be plugged
  into a single PC.

Anyone got any leads on such a beastie?  Oh yeah, if there is a
multiline box that talks to it's host over Ethernet, that would do the
trick too.

Thanks in advance, 


Robert J Woodhead, Biar Games, Inc.  !uunet!biar!trebor trebor@biar.UUCP 

dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson) (11/10/90)

In article <14492@accuvax.nwu.edu>, biar!trebor@uunet.uu.net (Robert J
Woodhead) writes:

[comments about bigmOuth PC voice equipment]

> I'm quite happy with it, but now I have a slightly more complicated
> bit of hardware on my Xmas shopping list.  What I need is a board that
> has the following features:

> * Can handle four or more calls simultaneously.
> * DMTF detection, audio recording and playback.
> * PC compatible
> * Hopefully buffers incoming and outgoing sampled audio on the board
>   so as to reduce the strain on the host machine.
> * Good low-level interface software library, in UNIX/XENIX if possible.
> * Also, it would be nice if more than one of these boards could be plugged
>   into a single PC.

Check out Dialogic Corp. of Parsippany, NJ.  They offer two, four, and
twelve-line cards, with MS-DOS and UNIX system software (drivers and
libraries).  These cards detect and generate touch tones, play and
record voice, and detect ring.  Add-ons allow this equipment to work
with DID trunks, T-1 circuits, interoffice (MF) trunks, voice-
recognition boards, and an audio switch matrix.  The latter, with some
adaptors that include telephone set interfaces, ringing power
supplies, etc., allows your PC to become a full PBX if you need that
much functionality.

> Anyone got any leads on such a beastie?  Oh yeah, if there is a
> multiline box that talks to it's host over Ethernet, that would do the
> trick too.

Put their cards in your PC and let the PC (running DOS or UNIX) talk
to the rest of your network.

No, I don't work for Dialogic.  Westmark is a value-added reseller of
their voice products, which we embed in our voice-response banking
applications.


Dave Levenson			Internet: dave@westmark.com
Westmark, Inc.			UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
Warren, NJ, USA			AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave
[The Man in the Mooney]		Voice: 908 647 0900  Fax: 908 647 6857

apn@apple.com (Alex Novickis) (11/11/90)

In article <14492@accuvax.nwu.edu> biar!trebor@uunet.uu.net (Robert J
Woodhead) writes:

>A couple of months ago I inquired about voicemail boards for the PC.
>Thanks to all that responded.  I ended up getting a Bigmouth board
>from Talking Technologies of Alameda, CA [415-522-3800] for about
>$225.  This board turns any old PC into a voicemail center, and the
>menu-driven software that comes with it (quite powerful) lets you set
>up voicemail boxes, phone trees, do voice questionaires, store and
>auto-forward voicemail, etc, etc, etc.

>I'm quite happy with it, but now I have a slightly more complicated
>bit of hardware on my Xmas shopping list.  What I need is a board that
>has the following features:
>into a single PC.

>Anyone got any leads on such a beastie?  Oh yeah, if there is a
>multiline box that talks to it's host over Ethernet, that would do the
>trick too.

There's a company in Los Gatos, CA called VICOM or maybe VYCOM and
they used to have a 64 line card for the PC, however I believe it only
did voice out, DTMF in type stuff. They may have more of such stuff
 ...  this was made for mass termination lines, e.g. 900 or 976 use.


Alex P. Novickis, Real Time systems demi-guru.  (W)   408-370-4541
ALINK:alex.n                                    (PAGE)    989-6678
{amdahl,claris,pyramid,sun,decwrl,well,ubvax,ames}!apn@apple.com,apn@nonvon

briang@eng.sun.com (Brian Gordon) (11/11/90)

I don't remember ever seeing info on phone/voicemail stuff for a Mac.
Does such a beast exist?  Is the Mac (e.g. Mac II) alive in the
telecommunications world?


Brian G. Gordon 	briang@Sun.COM (if you trust exotic mailers)        
			...!sun!briangordon (if you route it yourself)