Virtual Modem for VoIP

Yes there are many software aps for voip. Xten and SJLabs are the most popular (IMO) I prefer the SJ product for ease of configuration and sound quality. Both of these products are used by the major providers and supplied free. (usually)

Another good ap is from Glophone.

Yahoo Messenger is voice and voip capable with good sound quality.

You will need to purchase minutes for full "anyphone" use, but most programs are free peer-to-peer.

Check the user manual.

I used a profile with no problem. The XTen, on the other hand, had a bug that refused to accept the password, and I had to manually configure between the password prompt popping up repeatedly.

I *do* know that the SJ will hold multiple profiles. not sure how I did that. (it's been a while.)

Is there a simple way to create new profiles for the SJ ? From what I can see, the only choice appears to be to download canned profiles for various providers, without the ability to change e.g. registrar or outboud proxy. The Xten models, on the othe hand, are fully configurable.

Enzo

I think you're missing my point. The idea is to use existing VoIP systems in a different way. For instance, back in the day, IBM had these MWave modems that were a general purpose DSP chip that doubled as a sound card and a modem. I was hoping someone knew of an application that would take my soundcard and do the same thing over VoIP. Hence eliminating the need to route a modem through an ATA just to go back over the wire. Within the guts of the machine so to speak.

Perhaps it might help if you say what you want to achieve.

Are you wanting a system of making dialup modem calls using voip lines? I think this is what you are after but you dont seem too clear. There are loads of virtual modems and com redirectors avalible whether one will do what you want I dont know.

Ian

You do not make sense because a "modem" is a modulator-demodulator and an ATA is a modem too!

I for one am having a really hard time grasping what it is exactly that you're trying to achieve. Maybe you could lay it out in really simple terms?

Who are you trying to communicate with?

What hardware do you want to use?

What hardware do you refuse to use?

miguel

That doesn't make sense. Voip works by encoding audio into IP packets, sending it over the wire and decoding it back into audio. Any sound card in a PC can be used by software Voip phone software. It's the getting onto an IP network that requires ethernet and no DSP 'cards' will do this (and why should they considering how cheap an ethernet chipset is these days). If you want to use a laptop that has no ethernet connection and use a dial-up modem you can. It'll be slow as all get-out and the sound quality will suffer. A software Voip phone listening via the sound portion of the Mwave chip and then dialed out via the modem would work, albeit at pretty poor sound quality levels due to the slow transmission speeds of the modem.

In most situations you don't use a modem into an ATA. You use the computer's own ethernet connection to make the call. If you've got an ATA working then you already have ethernet and, well, it'd be silly to have a computer dial into it!

Or you're asking the wrong question based on wrong assumptions.

If you are looking for an FXO interface, able to drive an analog telephone line, sense ringing signals, dial DTMF tones and send/receive digitized voice, most so-called "Winmodems" have the necessary hardware. For two models, one based on the Motorola SM56 chipset and one on the Intel 537 (a.k.a. Ambient MD3200) plus TigerJet PCI interface, Digium provides software drivers for Asterisk and for a while was reselling them rebranded as, respectively, X100P and X101P. See e.g. the thread at:

For other models of Winmodems you are on your own; I suspect that it wouldn't be that difficult to modify the Digium drivers having sufficient hardware documentation.

Enzo

I want to communicate to another BBS or FAX system over VoIP without relying on an ATA. This should be possible with a soundcard or a DSP which a soundcard is anyways.

The virtual modems out there are for translating COM/Serial communications to IP traffic. Not VoIP traffic because it needs to refeed over the POTS network. I know exactly what I'm looking for and there is nothing on google like this.

You're missing the point entirely.

Speaking purely in hardware: The IBM Mwave is a general purpose DSP for desktop and laptop computers. The system programs the DSP to either be a sound card or a modem but not both. The circuitry routes it appropriately to an Telephone Interface or Soundcard ports.

No I'm not talking about using the ethernet card as a modem. Kinda pointless since it uses IP. What I'm talking about is using the soundcard to belch out the beeps and screeches that a modem communicates with into a VoIP channel and spit out on the far side's modem/fax through POTS connection on their end (not mine as I want the software to do it).

And in your last case, your absolutely wrong. If you want to use a fax or modem, you at this time would connect it into the ATA and the call is routed over VoIP to the destination. That is NOT what a ethernet card is for.

Can't be a winmodem although it works on the same premise. A winmodem uses a GP DSP with telephone connections attached to the DSP. However, the problem is that the DSP only talks to the telephone interface, not the soundcard ergo does not work... unless you know of a way to reroute a modem back into a soundcard.

I'm speaking entirely in software... like a voice changer but emulating DTMF and even 24/96 baud would suffice to start (slow but a start.)

A modem modulates and demodulates digital signals to a telephone interface. An ATA converts telephone signals into a digital packet for IP traversal. Neither is the same. That is what the salesman tells you but not how it really works.

An ATA is not a modem. It simply translate Telephone Line Signal to a digital packet for VoIP transmission.

There is not a lot of tolerance for erratic timing on the analog side of a modem connection. VoIP technology is really optimized around the particular flavors of tolerance that humans - and not modems - have for lossy transmission. You will be fighting an uphill battle. I'd be surprised if you could get this working at 9600bps.

Why not instead just use the remote modem's native modemming powers and pipe the serial data over TCP/IP? It's easy, it's reliable, and there's lots of software for it.

miguel

If that's the case then it's only because of your descriptions of the situation.

What's the fixation on the MWave and DSPs? While chips of it's nature have a range of features not all of them are worth bothering with. Especially given the incredibly low cost of ready-made VOIP devices.

Just what is it you want to do? What source of audio and what destination?

You're mixing examples and I'm certainly correct in what I posted. It's apparent you're not effectively describing what you want to do. Given how you've described it thus far, however, it seems like a waste of time and effort.

Given how cheap ATA devices are it seems like a fools errand to bother.

So, you're effectively talking about having a PC with a modem "call" into this device, route it through a VoIP circuit and then dial-out again at the remote end to connect to a remote BBS modem? Or, skipping the modem on the source end, let the PC use a remote FXO interface as an outbound dialing modem to the BBS. Sort of a tunnel for modem dialing? Isn't this what terminal servers are for? Using VoIP seems like it would add an unnecessary degree of complication to it.

Besides, BBS and modems? How LAST century...

(this from a guy who actually had and used 300 baud devices once upon a time...)

-Bill Kearney

There's nothing on google for all sorts of things. Sometimes because nobody's done it yet. Often because most know better than to bother wasting time on it.

Shiva's old series of NetModem devices come to mind when I think about remote modem use. A client on the PC/Mac would tunnel through the local IP network to the NetModem and then dial-out.

What problem, specifically, are you trying to solve? More and more it doesn't seem like VoIP has any use in this situation.