There are many disadvantages of using analog CTI ( Computer Telephony Integration) cards. Apart from that, digital CTI boards offer many advantages over analog CTI boards and I would like to list three main reasons why one should upgrade to digital CTI boards from analog ones.

Even in India, E1 connectivity or PRI lines are easily available from any telecom service provider and it is much cheaper. And with, many new CTI manufacturers are offering high quality digital CTI boards which are easily available.

Here are three reasons :-

1. Dialed Number Identification ( DNI Facility)
Digital boards provide DNI ( dialed Number Identification) which is not available in analog CTI boards. DNI can be very useful. It provides options for separate CTI applications depending on the DNI detected. The same interactive voice response application could play different welcome prompts as per DNI. For example:- A digital interface with Telephone exchange may offer 30 different numbers, and one common number for all 30 lines. Now depending on caller dialing one or groups of numbers, a separate greetings, separate call flow can be implemented in the same CTI application. There would be flexibility to change, modify these numbers without having to change any physical lines.
DNI can also be used for shortcut in menu options. For example, there are 4 kinds of complaints in a company. Four separate numbers could be used for each of the complaints saving callers time to choose a complaint through menu. This can greatly increase usability of any interactive voice response system application.

2. Quick connections
Digital CTI boards uses digital protocol for quick call setup and quick information exchanges. So, any call can be connected quickly. But n analog, it order to CTI boards, one has to wait two rings before the call can be connected. Many of the times, analog CTI boards may not detect CLI at all. Any irate customer gets more irritated when her call is connected after 2/3 rings. It also saves time and handle more calls. So the throughput of digital boards is more than analog CTI boards.

3. Disconnect Problems
Analog CTI boards need to train on varius disconnect tones which may vary from one PABX to another. It takes time to setup detection of these various tones like Busy Tone, Engage Tone, Disconnect Tone, Dial Tone. Also, it takes some minimum time to detect any of these tones. So, analog CTI boards take time to dial out, disconnect.
During outbound calls, it is not easy to detect if called number has picked the call or not. Many people use here voice activity detection as ring back tone does not work with accuracy. With digital CTI boards, all these problems are removed. This not only saves time, but it increases efficiency, result in more number calls.

There is one benefit of having analog lines. out of many analog lines, if one cable is cut, remaining lines will work, in digital, it is only one wire, so one cable is cut, whole of your lines or at least minimum 30 ports would go down.

So, if you are still using analog CTI board, consider upgrading to digital CTI boards now!

Donjin DN300 is equivalent of Dialogic D300-JCT board. It has one E1 connection ( RJ48 ) and 30 voice resources. Recently, I had an opportunity to test a DN300 board with our EPABX of Coral make DX2000. We used our Predictive Auto Dialer Application, written for Dialogic Digital CTI boards.

Donjin DN300 Board

1. Much like its Dialogic counterpart, it has one E1 with RJ48 connectivity for 30 voice resources and built in signaling protocols.
2. It supports ISDN PRI ( widely used now a days), R2MF. It also supports SS7 ( MTP, TUP, ISUP, SCCP) good enough for any voice portal or intelligent IVR applications.
3. It can work with any other voice boards. For example, it can work with Dialogic boards installed in the same machine. It can be very advantageous for upgrading a system with existing Dialogic boards with new Donjin boards.
4. It is quite cheaper than Dialogic equivalent board. Its market price is around Rs. 120,000/- only and if some one buys from www.ivrsworld.com, he will get another 5% discount. You may buy Donjin DN300 Board from here.

We were provided one DN300 board by Donjin India distributor Sunshine Telesoft (P) Limited, Mumbai. We used Coral DX2000 EPABX with E1 ISDN PRI (EURO) protocol.

We were also informed that it we just need to recompile our Dialogic C++ application using Library files of Donjin NADK SDK. So, first we tried to recompile our Dialogic Application! And wow, we got almost 2500 errors! On investigation, we found out that Donjin NADK does not have any C++ header files for its Library files (They use Dialogic header files only)! Also it uses different names for its Library files than Dialogic ones! Technical support team from Sunshine Telesoft has been quick enough to point me out my mistakes and correct them. And next instance, our code for Predictive Auto dialer Application were rebuilt successfully for Donjin board! It took hardly one day!

Next task was to integrate Donjin DN300 board with DX2000 EPABX! It took pretty long time but it was not fault of Donjin DN300 board, but a fault from EPABX. Finally after many days ( almost 40 days), EPABX guys could find a small programming error due to which calls were getting disconnected! Finally they agreed with our ISDN trace ( Donjin has very powerful and easy to use ISDN trace logger, unlike difficult to use Dialogic tools). Changing parameters like CRC status, Trunk mode/Network Mode in Donjin DN300 boards are quite easy compared to that of Dialogic Boards! Once Donjin DN300 with successfully integrated with DX200 EPABX, we run our application for 48 hours.

It made total 600 outgoing calls. Purposefully we made 10 destination numbers busy, 10 destination numbers which did not exist, 10 destination numbers with CRBT(Caller Ringback Tone), 10 numbers on call waiting. Donjin DN300 board could give all status 100% accurately! So we were very happy with Donjin DN300 performance.

Many people may be skeptical about quality of Donjin boards for it is being priced low or it is a Chinese product, but I did not find any problem when it worked for 48 hours. According to me, if it works for 48 hours, it could work for 48 days together. Very soon, we hope to deploy one predictive Auto Dialer System with Donjin DN300 board and would like to update this post with my experience with it.

Contact address for Donjin Boards, in India :-

Manager (Sales)
Website:www.sunshinetelesoft.com
Sunshine Telesoft (P) limited
Suite # 513, Laxmi Mall, New Link Road, Andheri (W), Mumbai, India – 400053.
Tel: +91 22 40 365 365.
Fax: +91 22 40 365 300.

I think, analog CTI boards most problematic to configure other than simple incoming or inbound IVR Software. They are dependent on switch or PBX connected to them for many basic IVR functions, call operations. I am trying to list here the problems I had been facing while using analog CTI boards:-

1. Disconnect
2. Dial Tone
3. Dial out
4. Caller Id

1. Disconnect
You need to ‘define’ the disconnect tone to your IVR application so that it can detect disconnect. This disconnect tone may vary from PBX to PBX. Dialogic has a tool PBXpert to detect various analog tones like dial tone, disconnect tone, busy tone, ring back tone etc. With CRBT ( Caller Ring Back Tone) being popular now a days, detection of ring back tone has just become more difficult.

2. Dial Tone
Dial tone also varies from one PBX manufacturer to another. This dial tone becomes very important when you make an outgoing call. IVR application may be unable to make outgoing call if it fails to detect dial tone. Though there are ways to dial out without detecting dial tone or learn dial tone and feed in IVR application, it is still not easy.

3. Dial out
Once successfully dial out, it may not be easy to detect if dialled party has picked up the call. Many people use Call Progress Analysis to detect, if person has picked up the call. But I always think, it is not easy or it does not work accurately all the time.

4. Caller ID
Unlike in digital CTI boards or Digital Telephony interface, caller ID detection is almost a pain and it may not work accurately all the time. Normally, in analog interface with PBX, the caller id is sent by PBX in DTMF form after first or second ring. So, it is really cumbersome to detect Caller ID.

Digital CTI boards with digital interface does not have the above problems. So it would be nice if one can avoid using analog CT boards and use digital boards. Though digital boards are costlier, but now a days there are many CTI vendors which have digital CTI boards which are priced very competitive.

I have thought of an arrangement to avoid using analog CTI cards. Though it may make the IVR system costlier, but most probably, it will be good arrangement in terms of future enhancements, more features. My thinking is to use use a EPABX with PRI card. the CTI board will be connected to EPABX through E1 connectivity and use ISDN PRI protocol. Commonly used and widely available. In turn EPABX may have CO lines from telephone service provider ( analog lines which other wise you wold have connected to CTI board directly). This kind of EPABX may cost less than Rs. 150,000/-

Now, when price of 4 port CTI boards starts with Rs. 10,000/-, investing another Rs. 150,000 on a EPABX and another Rs. 30,000 for a digital CTI board, may not make sense, honestly! But there are some benefit of using this kind of arrangement for for specific IVR application and outbound IVRS is one of them, considering the cost of hiring a E1 link from telephone service provider.

But, the problems I have listed above can be solved by smartly writing your IVR software. In fact, they must be routine problems for many IVR developer, unfortunately no document is available on net, at least I could not Google it. And I am yet to write a smart IVR application for analog CTI board as I started my IVR software development with Dialogic D300 board and R2MF protocol!