CallHandler-720 is the technology that enables the combination of telephone and voice networks. Computers can log data, are cost effective, they run scripts, network with other computers, connect over the Internet, send Email and FAXes, recognise voice, offer graphical interfaces for control and monitoring purposes and can be controlled and updated remotely. These include, fax on demand, on-line voice response information systems, 'chat' lines, the Internet automated call centres and many, many more. Computers are digital, this means every piece of information they process is based on individual numbers, e.g. digits. Give a computer a string of numbers to process and it is happy - to do this it even uses a software program, which itself is based on a string of numbers.
Numbers are the language of the computer.
We humans, however, process information which varies continuously - a sound wave hitting your ears does not vary in the same way as a string of numbers but in a continuously varying form. If you speak into a telephone you are causing a diaphragm to generate a continuously varying voltage, which is transmitted down the line. For a computer to understand this speech the voltage it generates must be converted into digits. Since telephone operators, such as British Telecom, use computers to control the telephone network it makes sense to convert this analogue speech into digits as soon as possible. This is what British Telecom does - if you are telephoning your mother in Leicester from London then your speech is first converted to digits at the telephone exchange, transmitted to the Leicester exchange where it is converted back to an analogue signal for transmission to your mothers telephone earpiece.