Play wav files over modem

[RyanCross]

I've never made anything like this before but I have found information on how to dial phone numbers and how to tell if someone has picked up. But I need to know how to play wav files over the phone line. My company needs to give our users that sign-up for our service a security code to enable their account. We have too many customers to call them ourselves so we want this automated system to do it. Anyone have any clue how to play wavs over the modem?


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Thank you,
Ryan M. Cross
Webmaster FlexiFish Inc. UK
Likuid Creations Inc.

[This message has been edited by RyanCross (edited July 16, 2001).]

[Don Dickinson]

I am going to have to speak in generalities instead of specifics because it's been a while since I've done this. If you own a modem that is "mwave" capable - there will be a modem specific interface to do this. If not, you might want to look at using a special voice board - a dialogic board. These boards can accomplish this rather easily. They have a C programmers interface of which I have translated most to PB. I am not familiar with using it as you will need to because the project I used it on it was used to answer the phone not place calls. But, I don't think it's too bad to figure out. They have a documented API. Per the MWave cards, I've never used the API directly, but have used it with a third party tool called Visual Voice (formerly owned by Artisoft, but I don't know who owns them now).

Best Regards,
Don

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dickinson.basicguru.com

[Lance Edmonds]

Search for "TAPI" (Telephone API) over at www.msdn.microsoft.com

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[RyanCross]

Yeah it seems a need a special modem. Seems none of the 3 modems I currently have support Wave. Does anyone know what kind of modem I need data/Voice/Fax or what?

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Thank you,
Ryan M. Cross
Webmaster FlexiFish Inc. UK
Likuid Creations Inc.

[Don Dickinson]

Lance is right about TAPI, that could be the answer - you just need a modem that's compliant (voice modem?) - I'm not sure what that means. I started translating the TAPI api, but didn't finish. If I can find the code (i just looked quick and couldn't find it), I'll post what I've done here.
Best Regards,
Don

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dickinson.basicguru.com

[Eric Pearson]

Ryan --

I have no idea which brand of modem you should look at, but I would recommend investigating the first part of the puzzle before spending too much time on the wav files.

> I have found information on how to dial phone
> numbers and how to tell if someone has picked up

Getting a modem to reliably recognize that a person has answered is much more difficult than it sounds, especially with answering machines, voice mail systems, and all of the games that the phone companies are playing these days. For example, here in Michigan, if nobody answers for 20 seconds or so you now get a voice message that says something like "No one has answered yet. While the phone continues to ring, you have the option of pressing 2 to leave a message..." This is done by the telephone company and there's nothing you can do about it.

Some modems "recognize" voices like that -- and voices on answering machines as well -- as busy signals. Some modems fail intermittently when you use the semicolon "return to command mode after dialing" command. MANY modems do not implement the at-sign "wait for one full ring and then five seconds of silence" properly...

Telephone solicitations are so common these days that many people will simply hang up if they hear a recording being played, or too many seconds of silence.

I guess what I am getting at is that you need to seek out a modem that does two things. Unless the technology has changed massively in just the last year or two, I would not be confident of any given modem's ability to recognize that a person has answered the phone.

-- Eric

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Perfect Sync Development Tools
Perfect Sync Web Site
Contact Us: mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>



[This message has been edited by Eric Pearson (edited July 17, 2001).]

[RyanCross]

Thanks Eric. I also live in Michigan, but the system will only ring probably 2 times and if no one picks up it will hang up and call back later, that should avoid any voice mails and answering machine. Plus any of those fancy telephone co crap.

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Thank you,
Ryan M. Cross
Webmaster FlexiFish Inc. UK
Likuid Creations Inc.

[This message has been edited by RyanCross (edited July 17, 2001).]

[Eric Pearson]

Gee, I hope your system calls me. I just love it when the phone rings and then stops before I can answer it. Over and over and over...

I wish you luck, but I have done a lot of work with a lot of different modems, and like I said, I don't think it's going to be as easy as you think.

-- Eric


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Perfect Sync Development Tools
Perfect Sync Web Site
Contact Us: mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[This message has been edited by Eric Pearson (edited July 17, 2001).]

[RyanCross]

Well we used to use this service called iVerify, but it went under. They only had it ring twice. See you'll know when the system will call you because you can choose. Like 1 minute after you submit the form. So it's the person's fault if they don't. We run such a high risk business. About 4/5 orders are fraudulent, so we're pretty strict with our ordering. But our service has a lot to offer so most customers have no problem with it, actually they like it cause htey know it's all real users and not a bunch of carders on the server. I've decided to use some telephony components for Visual Basic in stead of using PB. They're pretty nice and can do a lot of different things. So I don't know if it'll be that hard once I have a modem that is compatible with Wave.
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Thank you,
Ryan M. Cross
Webmaster FlexiFish Inc. UK
Likuid Creations Inc.



[This message has been edited by RyanCross (edited July 17, 2001).]

[Lance Edmonds]

Out of curiosity, what sort of business is this (in general terms) that attracts such a high level of fraudulent orders? The mind boggles!

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[RyanCross]

Lol...we offer shell accounts. http://www.flexishell.com

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Thank you,
Ryan M. Cross
Webmaster FlexiFish Inc. UK
Likuid Creations Inc.

[Lance Edmonds]

You must have pretty good security - my ISP's DNS has no record of your server. I tried .co.uk too, but to no avail.



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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[jcfuller]

Lance,
It appears to be YOUR isp. I linked with no problems.

James


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