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TAPI and Telephony Resources for .NET

Pete Brown - 08 August 2007

I've been kicking around the idea of writing a windows service that acts as an answering machine and integrates with the rest of my network (accessible from the kitchen PC, for example), but I found .NET TAPI information hard to come by. TAPI 3.0 isn't officially supported when accessed via managed code (and I found enough information to make me think that that is for good reason), so .NET resources are even more scarce.

To save others from some of the pain, here are some resources I found:

  • TAPI 3.0 Wrapper for .NET I haven't yet, but plan to soon. This site has lots of other great TAPI resources as well, including C++ libraries for drivers and whatnot. If you only have time for one stop, this is the one.
  • TeleTools, a product that provides functionality around TAPI and can be used from managed code. They have tons of example programs on their site too. At $300 or $500 for the versions that would support a basic answering machine, it may be a bit pricey for a home project.
  • A TAPI 2.1 C++ example of an answering machine.
  • An example using TAPI from Visual Basic .NET.
  • A book that has a section on TAPI. Sometimes I wish I didn't toss my copy of MAPI/TAPI/SAPI, but that was pretty outdated anyway.
  • An older managed TAPI wrapper. If this has been updated, I haven't seen the site that currently holds it.

Of course, should I actually get around to writing the service (still need to do some reseach to find out what will be easy/hard, I'll post the code or a "how I did it" here.

   
posted by Pete Brown on Wednesday, August 8, 2007
filed under:    

6 comments for “TAPI and Telephony Resources for .NET”

  1. Kishore Gsays:
    Hi,

    I want to write Window Service that works like a call center answering machine, where multiple instances should be handled and calls data to be saved into DB.

    How can I achieve this, if I'm using C#.Net and VS 2008.


    with regards
    Kishore G
  2. Petesays:
    @Kishore

    That's actually a pretty tall order. Are you sure you want to write this yourself, and not use something commercial?

    I recommend looking at the references above as a start, and build in increments. First create a single application that is able to pick up the phone when it rings. Then work on getting the audio information from the call and doing something with it. Finally, take those prototypes, and write your multi-line version based on them.

    Keep in mind that the solution will change whether you decide to go completely analog, or instead have a SIP gateway to turn the calls into VOIP calls.

    Pete

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