STATION ID - 7047/3.12 9x Datakit Network FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY This is a 9x system, restricted to authorized persons and for official 9x business only. Anyone using this system, network or data is subject to being monitored at any time for system administration and for identifying unauthorized users or system misuse. Anyone using this system expressly consents to such monitoring and is advised that any evidence of criminal activity revealed through such monitoring may be provided to law enforcement for prosecution. CTI (Computer-Telephony-Integration) Sept'98 by Hybrid So here it is, my second file for 9x.. Following my previous file on Latitude MeetingPlace Teleconferencing. Soon I will be realesing a colosal 5 thousand number 1-800 hand scan, as well as an intimatly detailed T-file on switch manipulation, and exploration.. exposing what I have recently discovered about DMS250 International gateways and various other DMS architectures. OK, now for this file: I have written this file to attempt to explain the full workings of the 'soft PBX', and how PBX's are rapidly becoming integrated with PBX software. Anyways, enough of this intr0... Heres the inf0. Enjoy. CTI stands for Computer Telephony Integration, the term covers a vast range of different technologys, from single user modem integration pacages to vast three-tier architectures for call-centres. The idea behind CTI, is that it saves time and money for companys that require a large PBX system, soon all PBX's will be fully software integrated. The most simple form of CTI is having software dial numbers through your modem, and have the modem treat voices as standard data, which in term it is. First Party Call Control ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Controlling a modem that is directly connected to the users desktop, usually via the standard serial port modem connection, is known as First Party Call Control. This type of soft PBX integration is commonly used for single user, single line call handling, although this archicture can be used in the operation of multi-level switchboards. Example: (excuse my crude drawing) | | _______Phone___________________Agents PC_______| | | | | | |_________ | | | PBX | Database | | | | |______Phone___________________Agents PC________| LAN | | | In this example, instead of dialing outside lines, the users desktop phone can dial the panoply of control sequences available to a large switchboard user- to pic up incomming calls, transfer them, put them on hold and so on. the primary CTI device is the modem which will pass the user the number of person who is calling (CLI- Calling Line Identity) Most CTI software packages will come with an option to make use of callerID and log incoming calls, duration of call, where the call was routed to and so on. This is where the CTI makes use of the database. When someone calls the PBX and their CLI is recognised by the database, the operator will have an active window on her computer pop up with a descriptiopn of the caller, ie- Name, number, address etc. This information can only be retrieved by the database if previously programmed to do so. The modem software will also be able to recieve incomming faxes, and also voice messages. In callerID software the following script is used with the AT#CID configuration: #CID=0 disables callerID #CID=1 enables callerID, the modem sends the data in pairs of data, time, caller number, and name etc. #CID=2 enables callerID. The modem sends the whole packet of CLI information in Ascii printable hex numbers. #CID? fetches the currebt callerID mode from the modem. #CID=? returns a list of mode capabilitys of the modem whith each elemant seperated by commas. Third-Party CTI Architecture ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If someone wants to control a swtichboard they'll use third-party CTI. In this scenario, the CTI connection is between a server somewhere on the network running a CTI application, and a switchboard itself instead of on the desktop. This connection -the CTI link- will usually be a proprietary connection, often requiring a special interface card, although a standard serial port can be used instead. In either case, the transfered data will be proprietary to the switch manufacturer. The most up-to-date equipment will use the TCP/IP Etchernet network as the interface between the server and the switch. In a third party configuration the telephony equipment being controlled needn't necessarily be a powerful switchboard -it could be somthing as simple as a modem attached to a server. In between these two extremes, there are all manor of devices, ranging from a simple 3-port PBX designed for ISDN right upto anolouge and digital line termination boards which plug into the server itself. | --------Phone-----------Agents PC----------------| | | | | | |---------- | | | | | | PBX-----Phone------------Agents PC----------------| Database | | | | \ |LAN \ | \ | \________________Server___________________| | (Third-party CTI is between a server on the | network running a CTI application and the | switchboard itself) | What happens in a typical large call centre is that first the phone call is catigorised according to the nature of the customers enquiry, in order to be able to route it to the agent or department most suitable for handling it, and/or pop the appropriate customer account information onto the agents screen. There are several ways of doing this. Sometimes the CLI number can be used to call up the customers record, and then the call can be routed depending on the type of account, policy or whatever held by the customer. Sometimes the incoming number is used: one call centre may be able to handle a large number of different campaigns, and this information is then used to display the correct agent script. More and more often these days, IVR (Interactive Voice Responce) systems are coming into use. -ie, when you ring a number and it says somthing like, 'press 1 for our latest price list, 2 for fax back'. All these techniques are designed to achieve three objectives: to determine the agent best suited to handle the call, to deal with as much as possible by computer so cutting down the amount of time the agent has to spend on the phone, and to present the agent with as much information as possible -even to the extent of popping the customers record up on the screen. Usulally, call center applications will operate on a script basis. The agent will be prompted with the questions to ask the caller ('can I have your address please'), and will fill them into the appropriate boxes on the screen. Back-office systems will be interrograted as appropriate. Unified Messaging ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The advantage of the CTI architecture is that all incomming messages can be handeled in one in-box, ie-email, faxes, voicemail etc. This way all messgaes can be picked up at once rather than from different in-boxes. What alot of companys are doing now is employing 'unified messaging', whereas they will have one universal in-box for all of thier messages, whatever technology they arrive by. One producer of this technique of voice-communication is OCTEL voice information proccessing. They produce a system called 'OCTEL Unified Messenger', which adds voice messaging to MS-Exchange email. With Unified Messenger, voice messages can be stored in the 'Exchange' mailbox. Faxes can already be handled by 'Exchange', assuming they have the right hardware. To achieve unification of voice messages with fax and email software such as OCTELs, the company would have to have a voice card installed in the server that is running the MS-exchange server. Usually people use the Dialogic cards for this type of application, but OCTEL uses Rhetorex instead. What Unified Messanger does is manage voice mail by playing and recording voice messages, providing a phone answering service, and interprets DTMF tones] for navigation through the system, ie- 'press 1 to leave a message' etc. Aswell as this the Unified Messanger goes one step further, and will actually do text to speech conversion on email, so a remote user can call in to collect voice and email messages over an audio phone link, cool? Although you would expect this system to be demanding on LAN bandwidth, it's not to bad. Each user would probably recieve about 5 minutes worth of voice messages, thats only 1.2Mb of storage. And playing an audio message uses only 4% of the bandwidth of a 10Mb/s Ethernet network. Mitel's MediaPath: PC | PC | | | | | TCP/IP =========================================================================== | | | | | Phone------ | -------Phone | | | | | | ______ ISDN | | | / PSTN | | | / Centrex ___________PBX MediaPath ______/ Wan / Server______________________________/ (To main PBX if required) What is happening in the above diagram is that voice data is being treated just like convention digital data and then being sent accross a WAN. There are several benifits to this, the most obvious being that they only have to install, pay for and maintain 1 set of infastructure, although additional gateways are then required between there IP links and traditional analouge telephony equipment. Problems: The next stage is for voice traffic to travel over the internal LAN backbone. One user can only generate 32K/s of voice data at a time, no mater how fast they speak, and that is'nt much compared to 10 or 100Mb/s of data. The problems are not with the bandwidth, but the quality. Voice traffic is obviously very sensitive to time delays, and the resultant stringent requirement for low latency impacts on the routers and other equipment involved in network infastructure. Certain telecommunications companys are working on new phones that can be pluged directly into an existing IP network the benifits of this will be that the users will not have to mess around with PC sound devices etc. Soft PBXs, dA future ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Telephony equipment, such as switchboards, interactive voice responce units, predictive diallers, voice mail systems and automatic call distrobutors, have always been proprietary and expensive. However, if you ever get a chance to look inside any of these devices, you will notcice that they all have certain things in common: a power supply, a CPU, memory, interface cards pluged into a bus, quite possibly a hard drive and so on, sound fammiliar? It does'nt take a genius to figure out that you could take a standard computer platform, plug a few cards in and load up suitable software, and you would have a very versatile telephony switch. Thus we see a brand new breed of PBX emerging, some from the established switch vendors like Mitel. These systems will soon take over the PBX market because they are alot cheaper for companys to purchase and maintain. They are 100% user configurable, and are exremely efficiant. Soon I will be realesing a t-file explaining how to build your own 'Soft PBX' and how to make use of it, think of the possibilitys! Well thats it for this file, hope someone can make use of it.. Thanxs for reading. Shouts: Substance, gr1p, and the whole of 9X. The whole of DarkCYDE. Word Up G WrekAnIzE, Microwire, Twisted_Nickle, t-phreaks, fuckit- the whole h/p kingdom! -Hybrid g0d@deathsdoor.com 1-800-466-9222, 7908.