What is Advanced Call Center?

Advanced Call Center is a Windows-compatible application that monitors the telephone line and processes incoming calls using your modem and Caller ID.  Caller ID is generally a paid subscription service and is not normally included to the basic telephone service package.  Caller ID is available in most countries (and certainly in the US, Canada, Australia, UK...).

The program can be used as a telephone auto-answering machine. 

When the telephone rings, Caller ID information is received as a series of special codes after the first or second ring.  The program attempts to identify the caller's name and number using it's internal database.  Depending on the caller's status (White listed, Normal or Black listed) and group options set, the call can be routed to the answering machine, answered normally, or even dropped immediately.  Personalized greetings and ring sounds can be assigned to individual entries in the database.

The software can record all or part of the conversation to a sound file with 'record-on-demand' function, and play it back to the recipient or through the local sound card at any time.

Advanced Call Center will store your messages as standard, Windows-compatible WAV files.

It is possible to control the software remotely.  Remotely available actions include message retrieval, leaving a message, changing the default greeting, and more.

Recorded answering machine messages can be heard remotely from any touch-tone telephone via Remote Retrieval function. 

In the speakerphone mode, a conversation is monitored through the sound card or the modem speaker (hand-free speakerphone).

The software is able to notify a user about an incoming call via numeric or alpha-numeric pager and/or via e-mail.  E-mail announcement can include full voice message left by remote party in a wave file.  Advanced Call Center can compress e-mail attachments using an MP3 or True Speech compression.

Advanced Call Center can announce call details in voice using a text-to-speech software.  When someone calls in, the name and/or telephone number will be announced by computer's voice.  This is handy when you are in another room and wish to know who is calling.  You can then choose to answer or not.  In order to use this feature you will need a text-to-speech package available for free from Microsoft.

Note that Caller Number Delivery service is not always available from your telephone company, and it is a paid service.

National Caller ID standards other then the U.S. one can be incompatible with your modem.  In that case you won't get caller's number.  ETSI, DTMF and NTT CLIP are supported by a few device types.

Your telephone company will advise you if Caller ID service is available at your location.  Different companies have different names for the same service:

Pacific Bell	AT&T	Bell	Telus
Number ID	Individual Calling Line ID	Calling Number Delivery	Call Display

British Telecom calls it 'Calling Line Identification Service (CDS)'.  DTMF Caller ID is also known as 'Calling Line Identification Presentation (CLIP)'.

If callers have their information blocked, the program will display Privacy sign or nothing.