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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."
Maybe you should run Asterisk at home where you have a lot of flexibility available to do just about everything you ever wanted (and some more too)
As an added bonus you can even blacklist callers so you can get rid of the telemarketers.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
It doesn't turn your landline into a softphone, it turns your landline into a landline, which works just as any other landline.
So you want to mute your computer when the POTS phone rings; why can't you ask that question instead of pretending that you have some magically non-VoIP softphone?
That being said, I think an standard audio compression and mixer is the right choice; prioritize the POTS audio and the computer will automatically be reduced in volume when the POTS line is active.
A lot of speakerphone capable modems have a set of line-out/speaker jumpers on the board as well as the 1/8" jacks on the back panel. Can't you just link that to the line-in jumpers on your sound card and then run it all through the Volume Control mixer of your choice?
You know, as a voice actor/actress, a little mp3 music in the background might not be a bad thing, maybe set the mood. Perhaps you dont need all the fangled gadgetry.
best of luck with the new job!
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
No, I honestly don't have the foggiest notion what a compressor does. That's why I suggested using it. I just wanted to sound like I knew what I was talking about.
I suppose, theoretically speaking, that someone who had some clue as to what he was doing could try connecting the phone's audio to the sidechain jack on the compressor. Then, he might think about setting the attack to the minimum, and the release to the maximum. He might also set the compression ratio somewhere in the neighborhood of 15:1 or higher, and the threshold fairly low.
If you did that, it would reduce the level of the audio from the computer, which is run through the main input on the compressor, whenever the level on the sidechain is higher than the threshold--or so I'm told. If that were the case, you could probably use that setup to take calls without ever having to touch your mixer, since you would need to have silence on the line for more than the maximum release time (three seconds on the 3630) before the music would come back up again.
Boy, if only that would work, DJs might use the same technique to duck audio levels when talking into the mic. Too bad I have no idea what I'm talking about.
That's a pretty good description of ducking. Although since the OP wanted to entirely mute the audio, s/he'd be better off using a limiter or a gate.
A limiter is a compressor with more than 20:1 reduction. A gate is (sort of) a compressor with an infinity:1 ratio.
And, if you didn't want to pay for a compressor/limiter/gate, you could probably figure out a way to get Ardour to do it.
But muting the speakers is probably the easiest way.
Actually, I have an even easier system, my friend did this at a lan party (he had his music on one machine, his game on another).
1) Buy 2 pairs of headphones (One big muff-type set and one ear-bud type set)
2) Put the earbuds in and the muff-style ones over top.
4) Hook one to the phone, the other to the computer
Problem solved!
You probably can't get the raw audio from your modem. Hardly any modems do full-duplex audio.
The early 1990s called. They want their modems back.
Nearly all modems today are just cheap soundcards with a relay attached (i.e., softmodems). They can almost all do full duplex audio. I know, because I did a bunch of research into the subject when setting up vgetty in linux.
You'd even be hard pressed to find a hard modem that doesn't do full duplex. Since it doesn't cost them any, they usually include that feature just so that they can advertise that it can do soft phone stuff.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!