Modem to land line?

Yer I know, probably a stupid question…

Because I’m a noob.

Anyhow here we go!

Is it possible to use a modem to connect Asterisk to an external land line?

I’ve looked all over the web for any knowledge about this.

If you can, how do you do it? if you cant, why?

Any info and advice would be welcome.

You do need hardware to convert the land line into digital so it can be used on your system, but a standard data modem will not do this.

You need a card for your system like a Digium, Rhino, Sangoma or an external device like an ATA to convert the analog line into digital so your system can use it.

Thanks for the reply Alan

I would still like to understand why a standard modem would not work?

Could it be that VoIP is digital and landline is possibly analog?

that still dont seem like a good explanation. If all I want to do is rout my own calls to a chosen number… Lets say all calls to my home mobile from my landline. whats to stop a script from converting the analog to digital?

I guess what the question is really… What is the hardware? and what does it do?

I standard modem is not designed to convert voice into a format compatible with VoIP.

There are many vendors that make hardware to convert Analog into digital. I listed 3 in my post above. This hardware converts the analog signal on your land line into digital so it can be used on a VoIP system.

Google VoIP gateway or ATA.

A modem is designed to Modulate/Demodulate the analog signal and convert it to a serial data stream (1’s and 0’s).

Newer modems contain DSP’s that could be reprogrammed to be used as a voice adapter, in fact that is what an x100p card was based on.

The card provides the proper electrical interface to the phone line and two way conversion of the analog voice signals to digital information.

This is not the job of “scripts” but of firmware in the card, drivers in Linux and Asterisk to support the interface.

Certainly it is possible to write drivers for any suitable device with the proper DSP and electrical interface.