Farewell to phones - computer-telephone integration boards - includes related article on CTI standards - Buyers Guide

Home Office Computing, Sept, 1995 by Mike Hogan

It all started when my third telephone answering machine joined its predecessors and quit taking intelligible messages. Because its warranty had expired, my options were to spend yet another $150 for a new one or $150 getting the old one repaired. Such is the economics of electronics.

It seemed like the perfect time to junk the answering machine and start getting my phone messages on my computer, where I already get my e-mail, news stories, faxes, and everything else worth saving. After all, my home office is kept toasty by two computers that are left on 24 hours a day. If I'm not online downloading stock quotes into one machine, it's because I'm loading business cards and receipts into the other. A third computer is my test bed, and a fourth gives me computing power at my other "office," a 5 1/2-acre avocado farm in the mountains of north San Diego County. Suffice it to say, I'm a little involved with computers. In fact, you're more likely to see a duck strolling past a June bug than to see me passing up a chance to perform one of my daily activities with my PC. Installing one of the new Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) boards seemed like a natural solution.

Mind you, I'm not into PC technology for its own sake. I don't spend my off-hours debating the merits of Star Trek with media junkies on the Internet. For me, technology is good for only one thing: profits. And a dozen years of pushing the personal technology envelope has shown me that every investment I've made in computer or telephone equipment has paid off in enhanced productivity - usually in short order.

Being a writer and a farmer gives me some communications needs that are, to say the least, difficult. Nearly all my writing business these days is done over phone lines. But playing telephone tag with editors and interview subjects, swapping e-mail, dialing up online news and other services, and taking down faxes can get messy. I end up logging in and out of half a dozen communications programs a couple of times a day, not to mention cutting and pasting stories and messages back and forth between them.

My farm, which is several hours away from my home office, needs plenty of attention as well. I need to be able to bounce back and forth between the two at will, with no falloff in productivity. It would simplify my life immensely if I could manage all my communications from one device (at least one device per location). I'd like to download all my messages - fax, voice mail, e-mail - to a single place on my computer with a single communications program. I'd also like the same program to direct my faxes, e-mail, pages, and other outgoing communications to whatever device my technologically challenged addressee has available at the time. I also need to get at the faxes and voice messages on my different machines when I'm on the road. Is that too much to ask?

It is, for the fax/modems I have now. They lack both the horsepower and the software to make it happen. But CTI boards are a different breed; they're equipped with powerful digital signal processors (DSPs) and other specialized components, as well as the software to take advantage of it all. CTI boards take the relationship between PC and telephone to a new level and come close to delivering the universal in-box and integrated address book/dialer that I crave.

Actually, I've been watching and waiting for CTI technology to hit its stride for some time. My old 386 is equipped with a TyIn 2000, one of the early fax/modem/answering machine combinations that began trickling out a couple of years ago. It works great, but its modem is only 2400bps, an orphaned relic of the industry's first push to integrate the telephone and computer. This time, though, it looks like the market is finally ready. Such PC makers as AST, AT&T, Austin Computer, and IBM have begun to replace the communications and multimedia boards in their retail PCs with the same multipurpose CTI add-in boards that you can buy at retail. The next time you buy a PC, expect your new machine to include this capability. But with more than enough PCs already cluttering up my offices, I just needed an add-in card - something I could quickly install so I could get back to pruning my trees.

Installation - As Easy As...

When I started looking into the new CTI boards, I discovered that the communications options had expanded practically overnight. You're now able to upgrade to whatever level best fits your needs and budget - not to mention your tolerance for hardware and software installation.

Manufacturers have bridged the gap between PCs and phones in two ways. Three of the products I checked out - Creative Labs Phone Blaster, Zoom Telephonics VFPI4.4V, and Prometheus CyberPhone - are essentially souped-up modems equipped to handle sound and bundled with voice-mail software. If you're just looking for a voice-mail system, don't want anything fancy, and favor a simpler installation, you might want to check this category out. These boards didn't require that I uninstall any of my existing hardware except for my modem (I have an internal unit), so installation hassles were minimal. There are even external models available for the truly inside-the-computer-phobic. These devices are reasonably cheap and easy to install, but they lack the more complete integration between voice, fax, and e-mail that I sought.