Computer telephony adds new efficiencies to small and home offices
Bob Emmerson
Computer telephony integration (CTI) is really just a politically correct term for a technology takeover. A dumb phone or fax machine is no match for a Pentium-powered PC; only an intelligent desktop system can work effectively with advanced communications services. Thus, it's the computer that's driving the whole integration process. The PC has its sights firmly focused on the communications side of our personal and business lives.
CTI can provide considerable benefits, and not only to large enterprises. Surprisingly, in the near term, it's small businesses and small office/home office (SOHO) users that are benefiting from it the most. De facto standards, such as Telephony API (TAPI) and Novell's Telephon
y Server API (TSAPI), are bringing a growing number of smart telephony applications to individual desktops and small LAN environments. It's convenient and logical to divide CTI into two broad categories: direct, or local, integration, where PC modems connect to the public network in the same way as a phone, and indirect integration, where the PC controls the phone by talking via LAN to a telephony server, which has a centralized link to the PBX.
SOHO applications primarily use direct integration. TAPI and Windows 95 will faciitate many of these applications (see the sidebar "TAPI and Windows 95"), but Windows 95 is not a communications panacea. Microsoft left voice support out of TAPI, and larger organizations will perfer to use solutions that are based on Common-ISDN API (CAPI) or the integration of LANs with PBXes (i.e., the TSAPI approach).
TAPI enables programmers to develop communications applications without having to be concerned with physical networks or the connecting hardware on which th
e applications will eventually run. For example, it eliminates the need to write telephony drivers. Windows offers the same functionality for printing: Applications print to a virtual Windows device, and printer manufacturers develop a Graphical Device Interface (GDI) driver for their devices.
With TAPI, an application can dial out from a PC and communicate or send and receive faxes over the same line without having to close down other applications. However, this is just the tip of a very large iceberg. Via TAPI, an application can also set up and tear down calls, and later on it can monitor call progress; read caller IDs; and hold, transfer, conference, park, pick up, redirect, and forward calls.
This scenario will let PBXes turn back to their original switching function. In turn, this means that expensive proprietary phones can be replaced by inexpensive, regular devices attached to PCs, so it's no surprise that many PBX vendors are not too enthusiastic about TAPI and are already looking for way
s to discredit this development.
Call Control and Media Control
It's important to realize that TAPI is broadly divided into what Microsoft refers to as call control and media control.
Call control
refers to the handling of the transmission;
media control
refers to the contents of the transmission. The current media-control facilities of TAPI are poor and not much appreciated by software developers. Thus, developers have to stick to call-control functions. Call control offers mixing and matching of communications applications that share the same port and modem.
TAPI is powerful at call control, but as yet it does not support complementary technologies, such as speech recognition, fax, voice, and speech-to-text conversion. These more complex applications require media control or additional hardware and another software architecture, such as the Signal Computing System Architecture (SCSA), which was developed by an initiative of over 280 computing and teleco
mmunications companies (see "Computer Telephony," July 1994 BYTE).
Specialized Billing
TAPI-enabled CTI applications
are changing and refining the way that small businesses communicate. They lower communications costs and enable a business to keep track of calls and faxes for billing and charging purposes. Many small companies and home professionals work with just one telephone line, and the lucky ones get to charge their calls back to clients. They therefore need a simple way of separating personal calls from business calls for tax purposes and to be able to produce itemized reports for each client.
The
Eltel Phone Manager
from Eurolink (Wetzikon, Switzerland) is a small device that connects to any analog phone line. It monitors and stores all calls on the line and does not interfere with fax machines or modems that are on the same line.
This line-monitoring and management system identifies your business's calls and your diffe
rent clients and facilitates the establishment of different cost accounts. Information is recorded regarding a call's date, time, and duration; the number called; and the charge. It saves information on up to 2000 calls in RAM, passes this data to the PC, and is then free to record information on more calls.
A Windows or DOS program enables you to generate individual reports. You can also get a visual overview of your communications costs by automatically generating charts. Charges are based on metering pulses, and jumper settings enable operation in all countries that use either 12- or 16-kHz pulse frequencies. Since these charges vary from country to country, you can set them yourself.
WinPhone 4.0
from MegaSoft (Vienna, Austria) is a software package that helps you reduce your business's telephone bills by automating the use of callback services. Basically, this program is a TAPI application that concentrates on your outbound calls. Its features include speed buttons, a ph
one book for a few thousand entries, and a log file.
Least Expensive Carrier
What sets WinPhone apart from other programs is that it includes a least-cost-routing algorithm that works with callback services, calling cards, equal-access carriers, and toll-free and local-access numbers. You enter the details of the services and cards that you want to use, and the program then determines the least expensive carrier every time it dials.
Today, automatic use of least-cost routing is available on only those few modems -- such as one model from U.S. Robotics -- that support this particular function in hardware. WinPhone helps to make significant cost savings, especially for international calls.
When an inbound call comes in, you can answer it in the regular way. But if caller ID is available, you can use it to trigger an application. If you're not available when a call comes in, voice mail is offered to the caller. WinPhone also allows you to call all the members of a group
with a single selection, and if a party you want to reach is not available, it lets you send him or her an optional fax or E-mail message with previously prepared text.
WinPhone and the Eltel Phone Manager both work with regular modems as well as with integrated voice-and-data devices, such as Spot from SDX Business Systems (Welwyn Garden City, U.K.). The name is short for "smart plain ordinary telephony." The product looks like a regular phone and can be used in the regular, push-one-button-after-another way. But Spot has a built-in modem, so you can dial directly from personal information manager (PIM) applications, such as Lotus Organizer.
Version 3 of Spot adds voice mail, faxing, and real data communications. The system records a message, performs the A/D conversion, and sends this signal to the PC via the serial link for storage on the hard disk. The V.22bis fax modem works with all major PC fax and data communications software.
Spot is TAPI-compliant and can be used either in the hom
ne or connected to an office PBX. This device is one that PBX vendors are sure to hate, since it gives users additional communications functionality at very little cost.
Add Voice Capabilities
Voice processing adds lots of bells and whistles to computer telephony, but it also raises a number of new issues. Integrated voice, fax, and data applications are enabled by voice/fax/data modems, but there isn't a common standard for them, because different chip sets are used for the A/D-conversion process. Windows 95 isn't going to change this situation, because there is currently no support for voice in TAPI. This explains why voice-processing software usually comes bundled with modems.
SuperVoice 2.0 from Pacific Image (Alhambra, CA) is a sophisticated voice-processing system that's being bundled with several European modems; it's also being customized to match local markets. ITMS (Kingston, U.K.), for example, has released the program with full speakerphone capabilities, auto-d
ialer facilities, and support for Mercury dialing codes. Voice functionality can be configured as a single answering machine or as multiple machines, each one with a personalized greeting and password protection.
Messages can be played back through the telephone handset, a modem speaker, or a sound card. You can also create voice/fax/data mailboxes, with pager notification for each one, and the system has a remote-access facility for all message types. This program also offers multiple language support and integrated BBS with upload, download, and list-file facilities for as many as 1000 mailboxes.
Develop Your Own
Dialogic (Zaventerm, Belgium) sells a voice-processing starter kit for people who want to develop their own applications. It includes a four-line PC voice-processing board and a PromptMaster phone.
You install the board into your PC, and all phone lines can be connected directly to the public exchange, although you can stick with just one number. The conne
ction is direct, because the system has its own on-board modem. You can script an auto-attendant message using the supplied applications generator. This message can be used, for example, to direct a fax-on-demand inquiry to an application, guide a caller through the options, and then fax the relevant documents.
The main differences between this and the kind of solution described earlier are the robustness of this service and the fact that the whole process takes place in background mode. You can also decide to give this service its own number if the volume of calls rises and starts to interfere with your other communications needs.
The starter kit enables a wide range of CTI applications that can be developed by literate PC users. Adding a dedicated voice-processing hardware platform from vendors such as Dialogic and Rhetorex (Bracknell, U.K.) also enables the use of more sophisticated applications generators or off-the-shelf CTI applications.
For a small business that has a switching facili
ty, such as a small PBX or key system, it makes sense to use a PC-based, multiline voice-processing system, where the number of ports equals the number of incoming trunk lines. The ports connect to the switch, as do the internal extensions.
When a call comes in, the voice-processing platform passes the relevant instruction to the switch. For example, the interactive voice-response part of the solution might determine that a caller has a sales inquiry; it then instructs the switch to transfer the call to the relevant salesperson. The person answering that particular extension may in reality wear several hats, but he or she knows that the incoming call is a sales inquiry and can make the appropriate response. In turn, this allows small companies to project a big company image.
Special Greetings
A small company that takes orders over the phone can easily develop a solution whereby regular customers enter their account number and the PC goes to the database, gets the relevant
file on that customer, and pops up a screen for the person taking orders. The data that pops up immediately indicates who is calling and shows all relevant sales information. Thus, a personalized greeting can be made and details of the order entered immediately. If the caller's account is not up to date, this information can also be displayed.
Note that while this type of solution requires a switching facility, it can be very basic, and you can later add more CTI smarts. In fact, it's better to have a dumb telephone-grade switch that's controlled by an open, attached PC than it is to have a proprietary, closed telephone system.
If you're wondering why you can't have a PC do the switching, the answer is that you can, but then it stops being a PC, and approval would be needed before you could use it. Although it might come in the same type of industrial rack housing used by RAID disk drive arrays, the motherboard will handle the switching and probably be based on SCSA. Also, it will use lots of plug
-in media-processing boards and station-interface boards to drive phones and headsets.
WHERE TO FIND
Dialogic
Zaventem, Belgium
+32 2 7250890
fax: +32 2 7254275
Eurolink
Wetzikon, Switzerland
+41 1 970 1212
fax: +41 1 930 3188
ITMS
Kingston, U.K.
+44 181 5491437
fax: +44 181 9746574
MegaSoft
Vienna, Austria
+43 1 470 2022
fax: +43 1 470 2022 77
Pacific Image
Alhambra, CA
(818) 457-8880
Rhetorex
Bracknell, U.K.
+44 1344 301066
fax: +44 1344 301067
SDX Business Systems
Welwyn Garden City, U.K.
+44 1707 392200
fax: +44 1707 376933
illustration_link (31 Kbytes)
TAPI is divided into call control and media control. Media control offers facilities such as writing an incoming fax directly to disk and faxing files. Call control enables you to mix and match communications applications and have them share the same port and modem. TAPI handles call control by replacing the ATDT dial string and the ATH disconnect string with function calls. Eventually, the TAPI DLL will enable advanced media control. The biggest advantages offered by TAPI are multitasking of different fax and data applications, hardware independence, and ease of modem installation.
photo_link (15 Kbytes)
The Eltel Phone Manager sits on the line, where it monitors and stores the metering pulses and passes data to the PC. It can be used in combination with voice/data modems, as well as with regular modems.
screen_link (46 Kbytes)
WinPhone 4.0 from MegaSoft helps you reduce phone bills by automating the use of callback services. It features speed buttons, a phone book for a few thousand entries, and a log file. The big advantage of this program is a least-cost-routing algorithm tha
t works with callback services, calling cards, equal access carriers, and toll-free and local-access numbers.
Bob Emmerson is a freelance writer based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. He specializes in mobile computing and telecommunications. You can reach him on CompuServe at 73252,1364 or on BIX at
editors@bix.com
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