Software to answer a land-line voice call using a PC

[fhammer]

I'm looking for (Windows Vista compatible) software that will answer a call coming in on a standard land-line. Specifically:

1. I have a standard telephone land-line with several active RJ-ll jacks throughout the house.
2. Standard/simple operational off-the-shelf phones and one simple phone/answering machine are
connected to several of the jacks.
3. On one of the unused jacks I have a USB voice modem (Sewell Accelerator 56K USB 2.0 Modem).
4. The modem and driver are installed and operational.
I can dial and conduct land-line voice calls using the Windows phone dialer (and my built-in speaker & mike).

So far, so good.

However, I can't find any software which will allow me to answer incoming voice calls.
What I'm looking for is PC software which will do the following when a call comes in on the land line:

A. Detect the incoming call,
B. Provide an audible alarm (ring),
C. Provide a pop-up window with the caller id and options to
i) Answer and conduct the call using my PC's built-in speaker and mike),
ii) Ingore it (let it ring)
iii) Hang up

I've tried dowloading ez-voice, which sounds like it would have this capability, but actually doesn't. It will act as an answering machine, but not a simple phone. I've also tried other tech forums, only to find lots of others frustrated by this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[phoneguy610]

It's called a phone system , they've been around for years lol

ddcommllc.com
Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS

"Will work for stars

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

3CX - windows PBX - you will need an analog gateway like

http://www.3cx.com/voip-gateways/patton-smartnode/

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[Sympology]

I agree 3CX should do this. Or an Asterisk derivative if you want to get a bit more down and dirty.

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

http://alvechurchlounge.org.uk

 

[curlycord]

I think they mean to use PC as a phone that works along side current setup, not create a PBX?.

Something like this:

http://www.avanquest.com/USA/Classic-PhoneTools-9/

You would just plug from modem to jack.


=----(((((((((()----=
curlycord

http://www.curlycord.com

Toronto Canada

http://www.telcopc.ca

 

[fhammer]

Curlycord: Thanks SO MUCH for carefully reading my original post and understanding my question.

I tried downloading trial versions of Classic Phone Tools as well as Ez-voice, but (inexplicably) neither provides the capability to detect incoming voice calls, provide an audible aleret (ring), provide options to a) answer and conduct using mike & speaker, b) hang-up, c) ignore. That's all I'm looking for. I already have the capability to INIIATE voice calls, and conduct them using speaker and mike, using dialer.exe which comes with Windows. That's what makes it so frustrating that I can't find any software to HANDLE INCOMING CALLS. The other thing that makes this frustrating, is that some of the commercial packages have the capability to automatically answer and record incomming voice calls (answering machine mode) but do not provide the option to answer an incoming call manually. The trial version of Ez-voice works fine in answering-machine mode (automatically detecting, answering, recording as MP3, and logging, calls), but does not provide a manual mode for answering incoming voice calls.

I've been trying to think of a technical reason why detecting and answering calls might be difficult. Maybe it has something to do with ring detection or passing analog voice input through to the PC speaker in realtime. On the other hand, Ez-voice appears to handle the technical stuff (albeit as an answering machine), except perhaps for the realtime alnalog pass-thru. Dialer.exe passes through the answering persons voice just fine in realtime, but only for PC-initiated calls.

I've been searching on the internet for a solution for weeks. Lots of users are frustraded by this problem. A number of commercial packages appeear to provide this cabability. In thier advertising they say things like "Use your PC as a phone", "Screen or block calls", however when you download the software, you find that the seemingly-simple capability you want, doesn't exist.

Thanks

 

[curlycord]

Last time I had this type of software installed was on my 486 machine and worked great but too long ago.

Try:

http://www.imptec.com/callstation.htm

http://www.nch.com.au/ivm/index.html

http://blog.hughestech.com/blog/answer_it/

I almost would think there is some issue with your PC or modem for it not to detect/notify or pop up a window when a call comes in.


=----(((((((((()----=
curlycord

http://www.curlycord.com

Toronto Canada

http://www.telcopc.ca