When it's a sound card, an answering machine, a speaker phone and a fax machine, too. Creative Labs takes home-based communications one step farther with the Phone Blaster. The modem is rated at 14.4 Kbps but will support data throughput up to 57.6 Kbps thanks to data compression provided by integrated V.42bis and MNP 5. All this speed is backed up by V.42, LAPM, and MNP4 error correction. When the 28.8 Kbps upgrade becomes available, this modem will be all you need for your data connections.
Fax broadcast allows multiple faxes to be transmitted to various clients.
I was initially skeptical about the quality of the speaker phone component but, after using the product, it appears to work relatively well. If privacy be-comes an issue, you can always switch over to the handset of a standard phone which can be connected to the Phone Blaster. Coupled with the speaker phone is a 'voice broadcast' feature, the voice equivalent of fax broadcast. The audio component of the Phone Blaster is basically a full-featured Sound Blaster 16 card. For users wanting superior sound, an interface is provided for connecting the WaveBlaster II, a wave- table synthesis daughterboard.