Re: Linux support for voice modems?

From: Haines Brown (brownh_at_teufel.hartford-hwp.com)
Date: 05/04/05 

Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 20:48:27 GMT

John-Paul Stewart <jpstewart@binaryfoundry.ca> writes:

> But to distinguish before answering (and hence not ring the phone for
> a fax) isn't possible without another line or distinctive ring, AFAIK.

> I've never seen it done in hardware, but that doesn't mean it can't
> be. Software, sure. But that means the computer has to answer *all*
> incoming calls and decide what to do. The vgetty docs mention that
> briefly, saying that if a non-voice call is detected, vgetty can be
> configured to spawn mgetty to handle a data call.

So, I infer that while vgetty might discriminate between voice and
fax, the phone will ring in either case.

> > I use fax too little to make a dedicated line worthwhile, I would
> > like to send/receive FAXes from the computer, and I would not want my
> > phone to ring if it is only a FAX coming in. Am I dreaming?
>
> That might be a bit of dream. Have you looked at the full VOCP system
> (built atop vgetty and mgetty)?
>
> http://www.vocpsystem.com/

I glanced at this URL, but it did not exactly say there would be no
telephone ring with incoming faxes:

> When a call comes in and the familiar beep beeps of a fax are
> detected, VOCP will correctly stop all voice modem activity and
> switch to fax mode (by exiting with a status code that vgetty
> recognizes). Mgetty will take the call over, and save the incoming
> fax (normally to /var/spool/voice/incoming).

I'm not clear whether this "beep beep" is in lieu of a telephone ring,
or in addition to the ring. Do you know?

> It won't quite do what you want, but it can come close. You can
> either have it answer all calls (voice and fax) and take voicemail or
> receive the fax. Or could you could have it answer no calls, and
> manually transfer incoming fax calls to the software. There are lots
> of possible scenarios that you could configure, but not quite what
> you're after.

So the VOCP System (open source, for curious lurkers), the choice is
between recording all incoming calls, voice or fax, or ring the phone
for all incoming calls. The former option would interfere with normal
phone operation, it seems.

Can a FAX machine have phone output jack so that it discriminates
between incoming FAX and voice, so that one simply puts fax machine
before the DSL adapter?
                                        
                                         | --> phone
  incoming --> faxMachine --> DSLadapter |
                                         | --> NIC

Thanks for the info. 

-- 
 
       Haines Brown
       KB1GRM

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