Voice mail versus cassette answering machine (was: Clueless Woman Calls Tech Show When Her Stolen Wi-Fi Disappears) [telecom]

Yes, I had one until the physical maintenance became bothersome.

When I finally switched to voice mail it was voice mail on my own Asterisk server. I have forced everything to 56k ulaw (including making sure all the prompts are available natively in that format) and I'm quite pleased with the quality. (This is in contrast to my attempts to use VOIP externally.) The system is sufficiently flexible that I was able to make the "user experience" pretty much the same as my old answering machine.

For anyone who has the necessary unix-style machine on all the time and whose answering machine is reaching end-of-life I recommend this approach. If you have other functions that can be subsumed by Asterisk (e.g., alarm dialer) the payoff may be even higher, though at the cost of increased single-point-of-failure issues.

I still access the Asterisk server with a 2565 set...

Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com

I found the Bogen Friday to be absolutely perfect and featureful for the last 10+ years I had landline service. It could even route, over a second line, an incoming call to my cell phone. The only mod I made to it was adding a jack so I could use an external speaker with it for better audio fidelity.

It still works fine though it's not in service anymore since I'm cell-phone only since 2002.

The unit is fully digital and had, IIRC, 99-message capability along with multiple mailboxes. A Google search just now found the manual so I don't have to scan it:

[51p, 1.2MB]

Asterisk is a fine system and works well with today's hardware and the Internet. I've installed/maintained a number of asterisk systems.

Another all-digital system that I used to use before my Bogen Friday was a system cobbled-up using AT&T 3B1 (aka UNIX PC aka PC7300) boxes and the VoicePower cards. Many small businesses (lawyer firms in particular, dunno why), movie theaters, emergency medical facilities and people like me would use these as answering systems. Audio quality was magnificent. The VoicePower cards recognized/generated TouchTone and voice and even the synthesized speech was pleasant and understandable though one could also record items for later playback.

Looking at some of my (random) notes saved along with the VoicePower manuals:

$ # enable voice manager for answering machine $ setvm on

$ vrecord -24 -t 60 -e 5 soundfile $ vplay -24 soundfile

$ cat /dev/voice > soundfile $ cat soundfile > /dev/voice

There was also a graphical sound/voice editor (noting the 3B1 came with a

3-button mouse (early 1980s)) accompanying the VoicePower cards. A full installation of VoicePower included a lot of supporting software.

I still have 3 fully-functional 3B1 systems and expansion chassis and, time permitting later this year, I'll set up a web page with info about them along with scanned manuals (of which I probably have the only extant copies).

I have the ATT version of it as well as the manual for it. You should sell it, I have seen them for as much as $400.00 and have had a few people offer to buy mine. I use it for several mail boxes and being able to access my second home line and make out going calls as well as having people being able to call me on my cell phone since I give the number to very few people.

On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:20:19 -0500, Dan Lanciani wrote: ........

Must use a lot more juice than a stand-alone answering machine?

- - Regards, David.

David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Not compared to the cost of a new answering machine: PC's are much more power-friendly these days, and there are now "PC Cubes" that have no mechanical parts and whose power consumpsion may be less than that of an answering machine.

In any case, the versatility of the Asterisk software makes the comparison problematic: take a PC one-generation-out-of-fashion, some free-as-in-speech software, and some time, and you have a compined voicemail, PBX, and emergency-alert system for zero cash outlay. That difference covers a lot of electricity.

Bill Horne Moderator

|On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:20:19 -0500, Dan Lanciani wrote: |........ |> For anyone who has the necessary unix-style machine on all the time and |> whose answering machine is reaching end-of-life I recommend this approach. |> If you have other functions that can be subsumed by Asterisk (e.g., alarm |> dialer) the payoff may be even higher, though at the cost of increased |> single-point-of-failure issues. | |Must use a lot more juice than a stand-alone answering machine?

I was careful to specify that this applied to someone who has the necessary unix-style machine on all the time. I would argue that the incremental "juice" used by running Asterisk (which is likely sleeping most of the time) is probably less than that used by any stand-alone answering machine. Of course, it does depend on what you are using for the FXO interface.

|***** Moderator's Note ***** | |Not compared to the cost of a new answering machine: PC's are much |more power-friendly these days, and there are now "PC Cubes" that have |no mechanical parts and whose power consumpsion may be less than that |of an answering machine. | |In any case, the versatility of the Asterisk software makes the |comparison problematic: take a PC one-generation-out-of-fashion, some |free-as-in-speech software, and some time, and you have a compined |voicemail, PBX, and emergency-alert system for zero cash outlay. That |difference covers a lot of electricity.

I should mention that the machine I use for Asterisk must be at least three generations out of fashion (I've lost track of how they count but it is 6+ years old and it wasn't cutting edge when I bought it) and it also acts as my DVR (which is was doing before I installed Asterisk) and does a few other home automation tasks.

Oh, one tip if you install Asterisk: take the time (and it isn't much time--the Wiki makes it sound more complicated than it is) to make the Asterisk server process run as some user other than root. There are really very few file it needs to write and it isn't even necessary to change the ownership of the config and sound files. I suggest this because the Asterisk code, while very useful, isn't super robust. You don't want to be the next victim of some SIP-delivered stack overflow root shell escape attack. Similar note if you install the Festival speech synthesizer. There is no reason at all for it to run as root though that is the default installation.

Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com

I have actually done measurements of all the electrical devices in my home and unfortunately PC hardware still consumes quite a bit of juice

24x7 in comparison to something like my cordless Handset/Answering machine + VoIP modem combo.

You can build low power PC devices these days with low power hard drives and low power CPUs etc - or source those little boxes designed for POS use that are low power - but you do need to combine a lot of functions to balance out the power use of all the separate devices.

The modern world has so much equipment in the home/office these days just sitting there consuming power - even down to mobile battery chargers that some of us have plugged in all the time just waiting to charge up our handsets when we need it.

I have a power board on my PC that controls power to all my ancillary devices via the PC power connection (had a USB controlled one a while back, but a new motherboard made that useless), it only saves a small amount overall but at least it's something