Telephony project

[Mike]

I was able to do something like this in Python a while back. You'll need one 
of:
(a) A telephone line dialer/monitor & DTMF I/O board that works through the 
serial port, and a phone audio tap that mixes the soundcard I/O to the phone
(b) A TAPI-compliant modem that does everything you need
(c) A digital POTS phone that is controllable through serial, USB or your 
LAN, or a TAPI interface.
(d) VOIP software and service than uses SIP, etc. (I found this I found 
this: 
http://softphones.globaliptel.com/(c50kru45yksjek55xr2b5g45)/_Pages/NoFrames/PageBuilder.aspx?content=4214134c0c4f416982e844bcd86b2955, 
but am in no way endorsing it. Also check out http://www.sipfoundry.org/)

I used method (a) -- (b) tends to be a pain (as most OEM TAPI modems have 
some fatal flaw or three...) and (c/d) may be more possible now that before. 
I used voice reco on the input side rather then DTMF, but I was doing it 
from local phone exensions on the same loop, not for outside calls, and not 
for the elderly, so DTMF is probably better anyway. (If you need to know the 
exact hardware I used, I can find out.)

The other option is to not have your own hardware at all and use a 
service -- there are companies provide web services that let you 
write/generate markup (VoiceXML or other) to make the calls, wait for DTMF 
or voice input, etc. (Though I had trouble Googling one at the moment - 
there were more a few years ago...)

m



"Roger" <maxwell.roger at googlemail.com> wrote in message 
news:1127816655.712927.289850 at g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>          "CheckOn" is the working name for my project.  Our church
> community has many elderly who are at home but close to assisted living
> placements.  Many do not have family and rely on  volunteer caretakers
> and lunch providers for their socialization.  We are trying to make
> phone contact with these members to check on their needs, wellbeing,
> and ability to take care of themselves.  In sharing that information
> with other denominations in our city, we discovered that others were
> having identical issues.  The numbers are larger than we anticipated.
> Thus the project.  Thanks for your interest.
>