Communication devices

INS supports any TAPI compliant voice modem or voice boards to be used for its voice features.
Please click here for an overview how to send SMS through INS.

Voice Devices

What is a Windows voice modem?
A voice modem is a modem that is capable of playing and recording audio over a telephone line.  While almost all modems are capable of doing data and fax, a growing number have voice capabilities.  Modern voice modems are powerful telephony devices capable of advanced features like voice interaction, call transfers, and outbound dialing.  For most users, a high quality voice modem and advanced telephony software like INS will allow them to create a professional communications solution.  Common brands include US Robotics, 3Com, ZOOM, ModemBlaster, EigerMedia, and others.

In order for a voice modem to work with Windows TAPI, the modem must have voice drivers and sound devices.  The voice drivers are interfaced with Windows 95/98/2000 through UniModem/V (95/98) or UniModem/5 (2000), Windows' universal modem voice drivers.  Sound devices (or Wave Devices) for the voice modem are usually provided by the manufacturer. 
If you wish to use your modem under TAPI you need to make sure that you have

• a voice capable modem  (IE a modem which is able to play voice files through the phone line or speaker)
• the most updated driver for your modem/board (ModemDrivers)
• make sure that you configure your modem with the latest modem driver. Unfortunately modem suppliers still seem to sell their modems with outdated drivers, which often do not support Voice & CallerID. The only way to be sure that you have the right driver is to download the newest driver from the Internet. You may even need to experiment with different drivers.
  IE the 3COM U.S.Robotics 56K Message Modem does not support Caller ID with its own driver (U.S.Robotics 56K Message) but detects CallerID with the U.S.Robotics 56K Voice EXT driver.

What is a TAPI voice board?
A voice board is a device designed specifically for doing voice processing over telephone lines.  Telephony cards provide much better quality audio output than voice modems and may support multiple phone lines on a single card.  A TAPI telephony card is one that works with Windows Telephony API.  Common brands include Dialogic or CallUrl.
In order for a telephony card to work with INS, it must provide support for playback and recording of wave format audio.  Technically, that means the device must provide TAPI "wave/in" and "wave/out" devices.
 

Directly accessing the Cisco (or other PABX manufacturer)  TSP (Telephony Service Provider)
The Cisco (www.cisco.com) TSP solution uses the Cisco CallManager software to allow you to access the installed extensions as TAPI devices. With this you can use our INS IVR Software with any extension configured on your Cisco System.
=> More Information about the Cisco TSP.

The  TSP (Telephony Service Provider) is shipped with the CallManager.

Wave Formats
The formats supported by the TAPI Wave Driver are 16-bit PCM at 8000Hz, 8-bit ulaw at 8000Hz, and 8-bit alaw at 8000Hz.

You can only play/record wave files on Cisco CallManager "CTI Ports". Route points and station lines do not support "wave/in" and "wave/out". You can run the Cisco soft phone application to test that your audio is working correctly. Make sure to create CTI ports in Cisco's administration software, assign them a unique extension and create the associate to the user who who has the TSP installed.

NOTE: You must have the proper version of your TSP client software to match your version of CallManager. If you upgraded to version 3.1, then you must upgrade your TAPI TSP. In addition, if you get a newer version of the TSP, it will not work with older versions of CallManager.

Voice boards

For best results, we recommend Dialogic telephony cards be used with INS.
Dialogic Diva cards
Can be used with normal analog phone lines and T1 and E1 lines
Telephony cards are a much better solution then voice modems, offering better quality sound playback/recording and better detection of DTMF and busy tones. Dialogic Diva cards listed below can be used with INS.
Conferencing + Speech + Voice + Fax Boards Diva Analog-2 Diva Analog-4 Diva Analog-8 Diva BRI-2 Diva 4BRI-8 Diva PRI/E1/T1-8 Conferencing + Speech + Voice Boards Diva V-PRI/T1-24 Diva V-PRI/E1-30 Diva V-2PRI/T1-48 Diva V-2PRI/E1-60 Diva V-4PRI/T1-96 Diva V-4PRI/E1-120   Voice Boards Diva PRI/E1/T1-CTI           Voice with Fax + Speech Boards Diva V-4PRI/E1-120 Diva V-4PRI/T1-96 Diva V-2PRI/E1-60 Diva V-2PRI/T1-48
Good entry-level cards for analog phone lines are the 4 port Diva Analog-4, they costs around US$600.
Dialogic cards can be purchased from: US: www.pcnation.com www.pagecomputers.com www.epinions.com Used cards: Ebay (www.ebay.com) and www.thetelecomlink.com   Europe: www.bressner.de (Search for DIVA)
A driver CD should be shipped with the cards. The free Dialogic® Diva® System Release 8.5WIN driver can also be downloaded from: http://www.dialogic.com/products/tdm_boards/system_release_software/Diva_for_Windows_2000.htm?dl=1&regID=26951  (47MB)   Please also see: Installing a Dialogic DIVA Systems.   Please note for the following cards: D/4PCI, D/4PCIU, D/4PCIUF, D/41E, D/41EPCI, D/41JCT, D/41ESC, D/41H, D/42 series, D/120JCT,  D/160S, D/21H, ProLine/2V, D/21D, D/41D, Dialog/2, Dialog/4, all digital T1/E1 cards: D/240, D/480, D/300, D/600, and all DMV-series cards. Those cards are now not supported anymore as the necessary SR does not support TAPI. If you find a "old" card you may still use it on an Windows-XP systems. Please click here for the installation guide.
CAPI Cards
Can be used with BRI ISDN lines and T1/E1 ISDN lines
INS can be used with any ISDN BRI (2 channel 128Kbs) and ISDN PRI (24 channel T1 or 30 channel E1) cards that supports CAPI. This includes cards from:
Dialogic Communication Solutions (formerly EICON) (BRI-2M, 4BRI-8M, etc)
AVM (Fritz!Card, B1, C2, C4, T1, Fritz!GSM, etc)
BT Speedway (UK version of the AVM Fritz!Card)
PrimuX cards from Gerdes AG
and many more, see here.
The most cost effective card at the time of writing is the AVM Fritz!Card. We recommend this card when using INS with BRI (128Kbps) ISDN lines.
Please also see: Installing on CAPI / ISDN Systems.
Other Telephony Cards
Can be used with normal analog phone lines
CallUrl Voice 2/4 LV+ 2- and 4-Port Analog Interface Voice Board The Voice 2/4LV+ provides two/four telephone line interface circuits for direct connection to analog loop start lines. Up to 4 Voice boards can be installed in a single PC chassis enabling port expansion up to 16 ports per system. Data Sheet   CallUrl Voice 8LV 8-Port Analog Interface Voice Board The Voice 4/8LV provides four/eight telephone line interface circuits for direct connection to analog loop start lines. Multiple Voice boards can be installed in a single PC chassis enabling port expansion up to 80 ports per system. Data Sheet   Brooktrout/Rhetorex still provides TAPI drivers for their cards (unsupported). The following cards are supported: Brooktrout Vantage 4 line & 8 line PCI, DSP9432i, RDSP432 (ISA) and some of the older models: TR114+I2L, TR114+P2L, TR114+I2C/D, TR114+I4L, TR114+P4L, TR114+I4C/D, TR114+I2P/V, TR114+I4P/V, TR114+I8P/V, TR114+I8S, TR114+I12V, TR114+I16V, TR114+I8V-T1, TR114+I24T, TR114+ P24T Please Click Here to obtain TAPI drivers for Brooktrout cards.
Other manufactures : Ai-Logix (formerly Music Telecom) and Natural Micro Systems no longer provide TAPI drivers for their products, hence cards from those manufacturers cannot be used with INS.
Telephony Devices
Can be used with normal analog phone lines only
Mediaphonics Phonerider USB This one line device has high quality playback and recording, together with good DTMF tone detection. The Mediaphonics company has now closed down but there are still a number of distributors holding stock of this device. One place to get them from is www.televox.com (priced at around US$200).
Way2Call's Hi-Phone DeskTop This one line device has high quality playback and recording, together with good DTMF tone detection (priced at around US$200). Note: Some users have reported some problems with setting up this device's drivers under Win2000. (please see here)
Modems (Voice capable)
Can be used with normal analog phone lines only
In general external modems work a lot better then the internal modems, and internal 'Soft' modems have a number of issues. We do not recommend using internal modems in general. As the modem models on the market change frequently we cannot provide a definitive list of current 'best' modems. We have found that the quality of sound playback and recording can vary between different releases of the same modem. When selecting your voice modem we recommend trying a few modems if possible and choosing the best one. For help on choosing the current best modem its probably best to ask for some help at a large computer shop in your local area. They will be able to advise which modems can correctly recognize your local telephone company's CallerID signaling, and which have a good reputation for sound quality. A discussion thread on which modems other users have found satisfactory is running on the INS Support Forum. Many voice modems have one or more of the following problems:   Poor sound quality/volume.   Unreliable DTMF tone detection.   Cannot do call transfers as hookflash length is too long or too short.   Mistakenly detect a disconnect tone while playing or recording messages and hangup a call halfway through playing/recording of sound file.   Unable to interrupt the playing of a sound file halfway through. For reasons above many people find voice modems unsuitable and choose to use a telephony card instead (Dialogic). For a feedback from users about the different modems click here. For a detailed list of modems we tested with INS please click here. For a detailed list of modem drivers under Windows 2000/XP please click here. Our recommendation for a voice modem is the US Robotics 56k Message Modem V.92   Installing Voice Modems When using a voice modem the first thing that should be checked is whether it's Wave drivers have been correctly installed. Without it's wave drivers the modem will not be able to play and record sound files. To check that the wave drivers are installed you will need to view the Windows Device Driver Manager. Windows 2000/XP/VISTA Open the Windows Control Panel Double click on the System Icon Click the Hardware TAB and Device Manager button Click the + next to Sound, video and game controllers. Check if the "UniModem Half-Duplex Audio Device" driver appears. If the wave drivers have not been installed for your voice modem then you should update or reinstall your modem drivers. You should also double check if the modem does in fact support voice (note: many 'speakerphone' modems do not support 'voice'). If its hard to find a Voice modem in your local area you can try buying them online from these places: US: www.pcmall.com www.accessmicro.com Note: Modems using the UnimodemV TelephonyService Provider (TSP) can only work with PCM 8000 Hz, 16 bit Mono wavefiles.  Other more sophisticated telephony devices can play other formats that allow for greater compression. In essence TAPI has nothing to do with the Wave files, the Windows Media Control Interface is used to play and record to/from the media device which just so happens to be part of the modem. If you are looking for an inexpensive program to work and convert wave files look at Cool Edit, http://www.syntrillium.com.
Other Miscellaneous Add-Ons
Instead of plugging analog telephone lines into the Dialogic card (or voice modem) you can just attach the IPS Fixed Cellular Terminal device and receive & make calls over the GSM mobile network. Very useful solution in situations where:
May take some time for the lines to be installed, Need to move the IVR system frequently, Need to change the phone numbers used by the IVR frequently (just purchase different pre-paid SIM cards), Need to place many calls to mobile phone numbers (mobile-to-mobile calls are usually cheaper then landline-to-mobile calls),

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