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Using My PC For Plain Old Telephone Service?
TheJerbear79 writes "I recently accepted a work-from-home job that will involve using my landline to talk to customers. When I log into the phone queue, my landline will ring, I'll put in a three digit code, and then calls are routed to the phone line I'm on. It essentially turns my landline into a softphone. Rather than using a regular handset or obtaining a nice business phone with a headset and speakerphone, I would like to use my PC's modem in conjunction with a normal PC headset and soundcard. I know the hardware is capable, but the modem didn't come with appropriate software. Has anyone found anything cheap/free that would suit this kind of usage? Just for clarity, I don't want to use a VOIP solution; I need to use my plain old landline. My reason is this: if I'm watching a movie or listening to an MP3 while I'm waiting for a call, I don't want it to ever be apparent to the person who is on the phone with me, and I want to route all the audio I use through a single headset. I've scoured Google for anything close to this application, and all I've managed to find is information on VOIP software or programs that turn my PC into an answering machine, neither of which will work."
This is probably better to do in hardware than in software. Here's what I'd try:
Get a phone that has a jack for a headset. These are usually a 3/32" connector that carries both microphone and audio. Connect to this an adaptor that splits it into two 1/8" connectors, one for headphones and one for mic. You probably have some headphones with a boom mic attached that has separate lines for audio and microphone. Just run the mic line into the mic port on the splitter, or use a lapel mic. Take the audio from the telephone, and feed it into a hardware mixer--just pick up any cheap mixer from Radio Shack. Then you can mix your computer's audio into the headphones as well. That way, you're not dependent on the computer working properly to be able to do your job, you can control audio source volumes quickly and independently from each other, and you could even add something like a DVD player or stereo to your mixer and be able to listen to that as well.
If you wanted to get really fancy, you could throw an audio compressor with sidechaining, such as the Alesis 3630, into the pipeline. Route the telephone's output so it goes through the compressor's sidechain channel, and run the computer's audio through the main input on the compressor. Then, whenever audio comes in through the phone line, the sound of the computer will automatically lower.
Addition:
I suggest that you take a look at http://www.asterisknow.org/ for Asterisk as an appliance.
Add a TDM410 card to be able to connect your POTS line.
The use of a softphone like Express Talk will allow you to use your headset. Some softphones will automatically mute your movie or music when a call arrives.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
You are new to telephony aren't you. Echo is not always between speaker and mic.
The reason he didn't ask your suggested question is simply because that is not what he wants to know.
He is asking what software is required to route the internal modem's POTS audio to the speakers and mic.
Most decent modems used to come with the necessary dialler software, however it is rapdidly disappearing.
He is NOT asking for external hardware to manage the relative levels of the PC audio and a separate POTS system.
The hardware hack in the first post is the way to go, but you'll learn something from using Asterisk (this means it's hard to use... incredibly cool, but with great power comes the occasional configuration headache: it does not know what you mean). If you use it, you don't need an external softphone. You can dial or receive calls from the Asterisk console.
If you don't want to do this in hardware and you don't want to buy a digium card (or its equivalent) and discover The Future of Telephony, consider calling in to the queue through a VOIP service from any old softphone. If you're a Windows user, I recommend X-lite, but they're mostly created equal. If you have to forward your home phone to your VOIP service, that's not so hard. Your friends who have recommended this option are not stupid.
I can't recommend a free VOIP service (Free World Dialup is now no longer free), but there are many that are pennies a day.
I recommend FreeSWITCH instead of Asterisk.
Works better, it doesn't have deadlocks, it's SIP stack is 100% RFC compliant, complete, all follow all the standards.
FreeSWITCH developers also don't re-invent the wheel every time they add something, they re-use stuff, like PCRE, Apache Portable Runtime (APR), SQLite, Sofia-SIP, etc.
I highly recommend FreeSWITCH instead of Asterisk.
http://freeswitch.org/
How does FreeSWITCH compare to Asterisk?
http://freeswitch.org/node/117
Up in my closet somewhere I have a PC/POTS switch. It allows you to flip a switch between receiving audio input from the PC and audio input from a POTS system, all on the same headset. It's really simple and I've never used it but I recall that it does work.
It's remarkably simple and I can't remember the name of it for the life of me.
If you want it, my email address has been unmasked enough for you to email me. I'll send it to you for cost of shipping.