Telephony in ReactOS; how and why

This is an enhancement suggested by Sorin Neacsu (sorin_ncs[at]yahoo.com)
Original text follows:

First of all I want to call your attention to some features that previously existed in Microsoft Windows but had been withdrawn in newer versions. In dial-up networking and telephony applications win 95/98/me had distinctive ring and call forwarding support, but this was discontinued in win 2000/xp/vista. Also in Microsoft Windows there is a feature with which I can instruct the dialing program to dial using a calling card...You know that those automated answering systems accepts selections made only in DTMF (tone dialing), but if I am connected to an old rotary or crossbar switch I can only dial in pulse. So I need to dial the acces number of the automated answering system in pulse and then switch to DTMF (tone dialing) mode. That's why in win 9x/me in the calling card configuration dialing box there was a button called "from now on do TONE dialing" or something like that. In this case a sequence of the instructions needed by the telephony program to dial using a calling card would look like this:

Example

1 Dial the acces number 08080 (It is dialed in pulse because pulse is selected in calling location properties)
2 From now on do tone dialing
3 Wait for 2 seconds
4 Dial 00 (international acces)
5 Dial country code
6 Dial area code
7 Dial destination number 55567778
8 Dial #

I was surprised when I saw in Windows xp and in all the following versions that the button "do tone dialing hereafter" dissapeared. So I thought that it would switch to tone dial anyway after the acces number, afterall there is no need to dial the pin number in pulse...no automated answering system would recognize-it..but nooooo. If on the location properties page you selected pulse because your phone switch requires it, the program would dial the entire sequence in pulse. Of course you can override this by using modificators like "p", "t", "," , "w"...
In this case the entire sequence listed above can become something like this:
p08080,t00CCACLOCALNUMBER# where p instructs the modem to pulse dial
T instructs the modem to DTMF dial
, instructs the modem to wait for 2 seconds
w instructs the modem to wait for second dial tone
CC represents Country code
AC represents Area Code
LOCALNUMBER represents the local phone number
but this seuence is not very elegant and most users wouldn't know how to use it, so my sugestion is to make a telephony software layer (similar to TAPI in windows) that can be instructed to use calling cards and that would automatically switch to DTMF dialing after the acces number without the need to be instructed to do so.

To come back to the distinctive ring and call forwarding telephony services...in Windows there are 3 applications that can handle phone calls: Dial-up server (for data calls), Fax console (for fax calls) and Phone dialer (for voice calls), but the ONLY way I can use those 3 programs simultaneously is with 3 different modems connected to 3 separated phone lines. I would like that the telephony software layer (equivalent to TAPI) would distinguish between the three types of phone calls using distinctive ring and redirect the call to the aproppiate application. Or it will be better if You will make only 1 application that handles all three types of calls and distinguish between them using distinctive ring... One application which can record voice messages, receive faxes or give the caller acces to the computer. And if distinctive ring service is not available in that area the caller would be invited to make selections in DTMF
for example:
If you want to leave a voice message press 1
If you want to send a fax press 2
If you want to connect to our BBS press 3
And of course that one telephony application could also handle calls from three modems connected to three separated phone lines
And using the call forwarding service provided by the phone company when I want to connect to internet using dial-up networking the modem could dial the sequence needed to forward my calls to my cell phone for example if I activated this function. Of course call forwarding is not very important anymore...not since the new V92 modems have call waiting and net on hold support, but it is better to also have the choice to use call forwarding instead of call waiting. And of course it would be better that the program would dial the sequence needed to cancel call waiting before sending a fax and the sequence needed to reenable call waiting after the fax was sent.
And that telephony application (sort of call center application) could log and record all incoming and outgoing voice phone calls even if they are made or answered by regular phones connected to the same line using caller id, line in use detection, and extension pick-up detection features of certain modems.

And also I would like direct cable connection support (connection between 2 computers using a null modem serial or paralel cable), which has been discontinued in Windows Vista.