Person Vs Answering Machine detection

[Guest Mike]

Well, now that I got all the stuff re-installed fresh, IE format and re-install. On XP

 

I have a Dialogic d4/JCT-LS 4 port analog card

 

When everything was first installed, it would detect a human answering no problem. Now it seems as if 90 percent of my test calls get treated as answering machine, even though I answer.

 

I have tested this on 2 land lines and a cell phone. same response from each line.

 

What can I do to fix this? I could not find the PAMD ( positive answering machine detection) that I read about on some posts.

 

Thanks

[Guest Mike]

Below is a cut & paste of the event log. omissions are ####### the number dialed.

 

This was after letting it ring 2 times and saying Hello.

 

 

68515 0 Ready To DialOut : 1 (out of 1)

68531 6 Dialing: #######

68531 6 MakeCall => 66015

68531 6 TapiCbTrigSet 66015 7002

69140 6 tapi Reply 66015 0

69140 6 TapiCbTrigClear

69140 6 tapie linedevstate 2048 0 0

69140 6 tapie callstate DIALTONE 66033 0 0

69156 6 tapie callstate DIALING 66033 0 0

69156 6 tapie callstate PROCEEDING 66033 0 0

69156 6 tapie callinfo CALLEDID

69171 6 tapie callinfo REASON

69171 6 Lev_CallerID [0000,]

69171 6 tapie callinfo ORIGIN

80500 6 tapie callstate DISCONNECTED 66033,16,0

80515 6 LsWaitAfterDialingOut EV_REMOTEPARTY_DISCONNECT

80515 6 Answering Machine or Fax Detected

80531 6 Dialing: Answering machine detected [NONE]

80531 0 DELETE FROM CallQue WHERE ID=37;

80546 6 Hanging up call...

80562 6 PlaySoundStop ok

80562 6 Waiting for a call...

80578 6 fnHangupCall end

80593 6 RecSoundStart err[3]

80609 6 Hanging up call...

80609 6 PlaySoundStop ok

80625 6 Waiting for a call...

80640 6 fnHangupCall end

80640 6 tapie linedevstate 2048 0 0

80656 6 tapie callstate IDLE 66033 0 0

80671 6 WorkingMode@Idle=

80671 6 tapi Reply 66016 0

80687 6 tapi Reply 65998 LINEERR_INVALCALLSTATE [8000001C]

81687 6 LsDialoutRecAnswerMachineWelcMsg EV_TIMEOUT_TIMETOREINITLINE

81687 6 Initialise telephony (due to IDLE)

81703 6 tapic lineDeallocateCall(MainCall:66033) 0

81765 6 Waiting for a call...

81781 6 hLine=66050

[SupportTeam]

PAMD is enabled by default on all outgoing calls.

 

Some mobile phone networks and cordless phones provide such poor quality connections that the answering person's voice almost sounds similar to an answering machine - and that is why when calling mobiles there is a higher likelihood of detecting a live answer as an answering machine instead.

 

When calling normal land lines you should get pretty accurate live-answer/answering-machine determination...

 

If you are finding that many of the lines that you are calling result in false "Answering Machine" detections then you could use a script for an answering machine option as well and in this script say something like "press 1 to accept a call" - then a live person who has been mistaken for an answering machine can press a digit and then the script can jump to the script which is used for "Live Persons"

 

.. also what version of VG are you using? From the trace I can see that this is a pretty old version... (although this does not affect quality of Live/AM detection)

[Guest Mike]

The version is 4.8.47

 

I do not understand at how the cordless phone would affect the detection., Well I sort of do.. I switched one of my phones, it wasn't even a cordless, it was a wired one, but picked up background noise ( I think ) and would detect me as an answering machine. At times, even on other lines, it would just answer, then hang up right away, and not even play the wav file I had specified for "play on answering machine" field.

 

I just answered about 25 calls on my own ( call to my own number to test ) and for some reason, now I am getting better results. But this happened before, then it would be really bad recognition for a while.

 

If my line has noise on it, is there a way to lower the sesitivity? Ie the answering machine detection works on if the message keeps talking, where as a person says hello. I'm thinking that when VG dials, the dialogic card detects a sound when it starts to dial, thinking that is the start of the " Hello..... Blah blah blah, and if it continues, it thinks its an answering machine, and when I say hello, and wait, it thinks that is the end of the greeting?

 

IN VG at what point does the program display answering machine detected? is it right at the beginning or at the end where there is a pause after the greeting that it will show " answering machine detected"

 

Assuming this is the issue, IE noise on the line, and the card thinking that its a greeting when in actual fact it is just a bit of static or sound cuased by the VOIP gateway? Is there a way to lower that setting on the dialogic card so that the threshold is higher for line noises?

 

I think I asked that twice in this post

 

I'm going to try dialing myself and listen for noises. ( How loud does it have to be to pick up the noise? )

 

Thanks

[SupportTeam]

Some cordless phones have a very poor wireless link - so the effect is similar to a poor mobile connection.

 

Background noise can play a factor in false detection of answering machines, we had a case where one site was playing a radio quite loud in the room where the phone was being answered and the Dialogic card was pretty regularly mistaking the background radio conversations for an answering machine...

 

At times, even on other lines, it would just answer, then hang up right away, and not even play the wav file I had specified for "play on answering machine" field.

That should not happen - there are only tow possible outcomes - live answer or an answering machine answer. If you think this happens again could you please post a copy of VoiceGuide's Debug Printout which captures the call, this will allow us to see what is happening.

is there a way to lower the sesitivity?

There are no parameters the you can change to alter the Dialogic card's answer machine detection process.

Dialogic's answering machine detection does not work by timing the length of response, it uses frequency based analysis. Detection of whether speech is coming from live person or answering machine is made is made in less then a second.

 

Using just the length of answer to determine whether the call is picked up by a human or by an answering machine does not work as well as Dialogic's PAMD (Positive Answering Machine Detection) system.

Length of answer based detection gives incorrect AM detections if there was loud background noise (of any type, not just radio), if the line quality was poor and you could hear static on the line, and it would also fail if a call was answered with a: "Welcome to Acme Enterprises, this is Melissa speaking, how can I help you today?"...

 

If Dialogic says that it detected and answering machine then VG will wait for the speaking on the line to finish before playing the answering machine message (or stating script).

 

In v5.2.2 onwards you can actually find out how long the answering machine message was, and if it turns out that it was quite short (say less then 2 seconds) then you may decide to ignore Dialogic's decision that this is an answering machine and force VG to start the script for "Live Person" instead.

This should be used if you have many calls to mobile phones etc.

[Guest Mike]

Right now I do not have a log of the hangup, becuase I never kept it. But when I looked through it. I recall seeing the wordage of " resourceunavalible " in capitals.

 

Something to that effect.

 

The service wast started, and worked on the call before properly. It literally just answers, then hangs up. It has played the " this is an automated call press any key to accept" if I left that file in the "play if modem used to dial" field in the numbers loader.

 

But it played the " press any key to accept the automated call" only AFTER I said Hello. and pressing any key doesnt work, it just played that one time, and hung up ( again only if the file was specified in the numbers loader)

 

I THINK, but not sure, if there was nothing in that field it would hang up right away.

[SupportTeam]

If it happens again please post the trace, however as you are using quite an old version of VG those traces will probably not be much help in determining what is happening on the calls.

 

I'd recommend you upgrade to v5.2 of VG.

[Guest Mike]

PROBLEM SOLVED, If it was every really a problem...

 

Here's a laugh for everyone. It may seem like its not true, BUT TRUST ME, after countless, well, about 24 - 30 hours of troubleshooting & testing I have found the reason why my dialogic D/41JCT-LS was detecting my voice as an answering machine.

 

COMPUTER FAN!, not a word of a lie!

 

Its not no small desktop. It is a Dell PowerEdge 6300 Server, Quad Xeon. It has 2 CPU fans (Big Ones) 3 Hard drive fans, and 3 power supply fans. Yes its louder then the average desktop, and i'm used to the sound.

 

I originally thought the issue was becuase I was making the test calls over a VOIP line, thought there would be issues. Quite often it would detect correct, but too often it would not. It would dial 2 landline (POTS) lines and I would answer. I even used my cell phone as well (CDMA).

 

Then I started wondering, I schedualed the calls to happen at certain times to other peoples houses(Only 3 people that I knew) and When I went to visit, everything was fine, detected properly.

 

As confused as I was, I went back to my house, tried it, failed. I then tried it but answered the phones outside of the office that I have the server in. Worked every time. I'm not about to answer 100 calls on each line to test, but it did work for a total of about 40. Seems as if the frequency or sound that dialogic uses to detect answering machines was present.

 

Problem solved, well, there really wasn't a problem. I tried answering the calls in the office, but said Hello, and covered the MIC with my thumb, guess what, detected as human. ( No fan noise/highpitch HDD sound was being sent to the dialogic card.)

 

Happy to have it working, and ready to dialout on my 4 VoIP lines.

 

Signed...

 

 

Stressed!

[SupportTeam]

Glad to hear it's all working well... background noise on an answered call does make it difficult to determine whether an answering machine or human answered the call...

 

Whose companies VoIP lines are you using? Sounds like the quality of the VoIP lines is as good as normal landlines if you can get reliable human answer detection on them.

 

Also - that's quite a powerful server you're using - you will probably be able to run 60+ VoiceGuide lines on such a box if needed.

[Guest Mike]

The VoIP lines that I use are from Primus. Primus is in Canada as well as the USA, however from what they tell me the US version is not as good as the Canadian one that I have.

 

They use G.711 Protocol, the audio is awesome, and no one that I call can tell if it is a VoIP phone or regular land line. The reliability has been 100% for uptime, and there is a small delay on it. About the same as you would have with a digital cell phone. 1/4 - 1/3 of a second. Totaly un-noticable in conversation. these VoIP lines support sending faxes as well. And only 20 bux CND a month, cheaper by 4 dollars for a POTS line. This includes flat rate local calling and 5 cents a minute North america wide. They also support *08 ( Call transfer ) which the Pots system here does not. 5 Way Calling, and you can press 88 when listing to a voice message and it will call the person back that left the message.

 

[another question moved to new thread]

Edited 03/17/2004 04:19 AM by SupportTeam

[SupportTeam]

Thanks for the info. Can you take these VoIP devices afterwards anywhere in the world and call numbers in North America for the 5c CND per minute (+ internet connect charges) ? Or do you must use them on Primus internet lines only?

[Guest Mike]

The flat rate $20.00 gives you local calling to the local calling area that you choose, from variose cities. ( In Canada)

 

There is no charge when you call that local area, if you call anywhere else in north america, its 5 cents, Germany is 6 cents, UK is about the same. You can take this device anywhere in the world, just need a high speed connection, your calls will be sent to that device, IE Joe calls your local number 777-1234, your 5000KM's away from home, you answer, no one pays long distance. You can STILL call your local area based on that flat local calling, and same rates to Northamerica, UK etc, germany for like 5 or 6 cents/minute.

 

The other great part is that you can attach 2 alternate numbers to your main one, IE two numbers from other area codes ( In Canada ) and have 3 numbers of all which can be in three different cities. However, your outbound calls are made as if from your primary number.

 

Sally in Toronto can call your Toronto number, Mike in Halifax can call your Halifax number while you have a Vancouver primary number and not pay long distance, and you can have the VoIP gateway anywhere in the world, and you wouldnt pay long distance for the calls.

 

But to call Mike or Sally back, your calls would be considered made from your Primary (Vancouver) number, so you would pay 5 cents/minute to call Toronto or Halifax, but 5 cents is $3.00/hour.

 

If Mike calls your Toronto Alternate number, you can answer, or have Voice guide answer, and hit flash, *08, (604)XXX-XXXX to transfer his call to vancouver, in other words, he doenst pay LD to call vancouver, since the *08 feature gets billed to your number, as if you made the outbound call, and which you did.

 

P.s. *08 is a true transfer, when you hit flash, the caller that called you, or the person you called originally will hear really bad music, you dial *08,(Number, local or LD) and then when you hear dialing, hang up, the original caller will start to hear the dialing. YOu get billed for that call, but local calls are not billed.

 

If you do alot of business in Canada, great way to get a phone number(s) here.

 

Last I checked, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, maybey more now had numbers available. primus.ca

 

They should pay me for this Free marketing! ( p.s. I do not know if they ship these devices outside of Canada, use a canadian address and get a friend to mail it to you. It is NOT a phone style VoIP Phone, its a gateway, ie you have an RJ11 to plug your phone into it.

[Guest Pradeep Kumar]

I need to do Answering machine detection using Dialogic Card (D41ESC ) for my 4 seater Callcenter.

Please guide me how to do it as everytime it is recognising the Answering machine as PHV (Positive Human Voice).

 

Pradeep.

pradeep371@msn.com

[SupportTeam]

Are you using VoiceGuide software? I could not find your email address in our customer database.

 

What sort of answering machines are they? Are they actual answering machines or are they voicemail boxes etc? Can you supply us with a phone number we can try calling to test this false detection?

[Guest karunakaran]

im working as a customer rep in data solution,every day im facing the problem of answering machine,fax tone,voicemail this degrades my performance in calling.how can i deduce or how can i over come with answering machine problem.

 

 

thanqu

karunakaran.k

[SupportTeam]

Are you using VoiceGuide software? I could not find your email address in our customer database.