🚀 go-pugleaf

[0]Derek Schott (schottd@PEAK.ORG) wrote:
[0]Can anyone explain clearly what this is? All these new modems are
[0]coming out with voice mail, high speed fax capabilities, and
[0]other tricks, but what exactly is voice view?

SBFAQM!		(Should Be F A Q Material)

VoiceView is a proprietary protocol that allows two modems equipped
with VV to switch between voice (you talking on phones connected to the
PHONE jack on the modem) to data (with the two PHONE jacks disconnected)
and back again.   The telephones are dead when data is being sent.

VV is different (and arguably obsolete) from the new DVSD technologies that
allow both voice and data to be sent between two modems in digital form
simultaneously.  (Neither VV nor DVSD can send the voice to one phone
number and the data to another.  Both voice and data go to the same 
destination.)

VoiceView is being pushed by several companies (AST, Microsoft for certain)
as a way to reduce telephone support costs, but since the product would not
be worthwhile on that point alone, Radish (owner of VV) is trying to get
people to sell compact discs via Blockbuster, flowers and other services
by phone, using VoiceView to handle the transactions.  There are financial
kickbacks to both the computer company who bundled the modem and Radish for
sales of product via VV modems.

Someone apparently figured out that if you were going to preview and sell
CDs by phone, why should you limit yourself to just people with a VV modem,
as I now see TV ads for someone offering listen-and-buy CD purchases via
touch-tone phone.  I also was curious how much of the "voice" side the
flowers-by-phone was really going to need.  IMO, the WWW is rapidly going
to take over that side of the market.

The computer support model for VV requires the computer company to include
special software that when triggered by the technical support personnel
allows them to examine and, if needed, modify files on your system.  Lots
of foul-ups in SYSTEM.INI and such can get fixed this way quickly.
In general the local user can't see what is happening so VVaccess isn't like
Carbon Copy or other remote access packages where you can watch every
little mouse movement.

VoiceView runs in half-duplex, using FAX modulations.  Originally it
ran only at 2400 baud half-duplex, but newer versions run at 14,400
half-duplex.   Depending on who you listen to at Radish, the reason for
using the FAX modulation was "it trains faster" (which may have made
sense in the 2400 baud days), or "it is a more robust modulation" (which
I think some experts would have trouble with).

Also, although people confuse VoiceViews's presence as a requirement with
being able to do Microsofts Binary File Transfer, they are separate.
BFT only needs a modem that can be put in Class 1 FAX mode, aka "manual".

To allow automatic switching, VV designates a tone that one modem can
emit and the other will detect that causes the PHONE jacks to be disabled
and the modems to immediately go into FAX-like mode.  AT+FCLASS=80
enters VV mode.  Because it is just a single tone (not DTMF), there
is a potential for false-triggering of the VV modems.

A modem that already has the relay for disabling the local PHONE jack,
and has voice capabilities like DTMF detection filters, is probably 
adaptable to VV.   AST was able to add it to one of their existing modems
by only changing the firmware.

Because of the upcoming ITU DVSD standard, I can name at least one
modem chipset maker who indicates that they will drop VV from their
firmware when DVSD becomes standardized.   They feel VV will be
obsolete when that happens and the ROM space could be used for other things.


Frank Durda IV <uhclem@nemesis.lonestar.org>|(C) 1995 FDIV All Rights Reserved.
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