[CentOS] Voice/Fax Modem advice

[hw]

Jose Maria Terry Jimenez wrote:
> El 4/10/17 a las 17:45, david escribió:
>
>> Folks
>>
>> A have a PCIe modem (Conexant ChipSet, PCI id = 14f1:2f83.  It interfaces to my land-line (POTS) telephone line in the United States.  On Windows, I had a good answering machine package (Ventafax) that reported CallerID, recorded messages, sent/received fax, and had a scripting language that let me say "To leave a message for Alice, press 1; to leave a message for Bob, press 2", etc.
>>
>> I'm trying to move this function to a Centos-based system without going to the expense or complexity of Asterisk (expense because of specialized telephony cards).
>>
>> My research found a driver (at www.linuxant.com), but it required that I recompile the driver.  I got absolutely lost trying to follow the directions which seemed to be steering me towards a custom Kernel.
>>
>> So, my question to the group wisdom is:
>>
>> - Is there any hope in trying to find a suitable driver for this device without building a custom kernel?  And if a custom "module" is needed, I might need help compiling it.
>>
>> - Is there a inexpensive modem that Centos 7 supports with the needed functions?  and maybe some software applications that might help?
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>> David
> Hello
>
> You can install an Asterisk with a "mini-gateway" like http://www.grandstream.com/products/gateways-and-atas/analog-telephone-adaptors/product/handytone-503 And is not so complex write a dialplan for the functions you say. There is many tutorial over the HT503 and Asterisk in the wild!

A SPA122 ATA from Cisco might be useful as a gateway, they are cheap.
You´d be using it kinda in reverse, but I don´t see why that shouldn´t
be possible.

Other than that, specialized cards have come down in prices, probably
because ppl aren´t using them anymore.  You might also want to look
into Patton gateways, but they tend to be rather pricy and are a hell
to set up unless you´re familiar with all the phone-related stuff.

If your internet connection is decent, it might be a good idea to give
up the POTS line and use a VOIP provider instead, with a asterisk
connected to it.  It would be the easiest way by far.

Asterisk isn´t too complicated for getting basic phone services to work
on which you can expand over time; you only need to overcome the few
first steps.  Since a Centos package for asterisk is missing, you may
want to compile it yourself, which is easy.  However, I had to disable
one of the drivers/features of asterisk in the build config because
there´s a bug that makes asterisk fail when that feature/driver is
enabled --- I left everything else enabled and don´t know what most of
the stuff is ...

There´s probably no way around asterisk anyway.  For fax, if you really
need that, there is, since ages, hylafax, which apparently can be
somehow made to work with asterisk.  Fax has always been, and still is,
a PITA.  Fax doesn´t make any sense since decades; it´s way easier and
far more reliable to send emails instead.

If you pick a VOIP provider, they might have a fax service which you could
use instead of trying to figure it out.

>
> Hope helps you
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