marcquey wrote:
I am thinking of getting Vonage and assume this avoids the need for a modem or telephony device?
You do not need a modem if you use vonage. You can purchase soft phone lines from vonage and make them work directly with DialDictate.
I noticed a post that with DSL connection they hit a ceiling as to how many lines could come in at the same time - what was that ceiling?
I am running a system with 13 incomming vonage lines and I think I had to relocate my server into a network operations center with a very fast connection after about 5 or 6 phone lines. The reason for this is that each phone line needs a certain amount of upstream and downstream data transfer and at somepoint a DSL line runs out of bandwidth.
With Vonage - do I need the PBX software too?
I am not running any PBX software
Another post I saw noted problems with deleting dictation instead of sending it - has this been corrected? I cannot see getting this up and running only to have my clients' (lawyers) dictation deleted - what a way to lose a client fast.
I do not loose dictations, I send my dictations via e-mail and the only problem I had was that I needed to upgrade my processor or else I got choppy sound. I am now running an Athelon XP duel core on windows 2000 and all my problems are gone. I do often times get doctors claim I lost a dictation but usually I find that the Doc forgot to leave it and thought he had or it is sitting in that doc's saved recordings file. The system says you have saved recordings and for some reason my doctors never seem to hear that.
I guess what I'm really looking for is a list of instructions as to exactly what it is that I need to get this up and running for a couple of users to start with a view to adding more later using DSL (cable) and Vonage(Canada). There is so much on the site, but too much for me to sort through
For instructions I don't have much. Get a fast processor and a good network card and from my expirence you should be OK. You can read about vonage's bandwidth requirements on their forum and then you just need to decide how many lines your chosen internet connection can handle.
If you decide to use more then 4 incomming lines you may have to purchase 1 extra line to be used for routing. I had a problem with Vonage failing to forward past 4 lines. I had to purchase an extra line that is not connected Dial Dictate which forward to banks of 4 connected phone lines. Send me a PM if you need help with that one.
I have never tried FTP or any other file transfer method. For me, I use e-mail. I am compressing my dictations using MP3 on the 2nd or 3rd from the higheset compression setting and my transcribers say the sound is great. I have 75 doctors, 9 transcriptionists, and 13 phone lines, only 12 of them are actually connected to DialDictate. Them main problem I have is from time to time Vonage may hiccup and miss a word. This sounds much like a poor connection on a cell phone and I sumetimes suspect that my docs may be calling from a cell phone eventhough I have told them not to. My 2nd biggest problem is keeping my transcribers' version of Outlook Express running. I also need to remind my doctors to listen for the saved recordings prompt if they think a dictation is missing.
Sorry nobody has responded to you, I don't get into the frums very often but when I do, I try and answer people if I know the answer. I am actually surprised that there is not an NCH moderator in this forum to answer questions. Many other forums have a moderator who answers questions. When I first started over a year ago I never got any answers fom the forum either so I quit using it. I had to basically learn everything on my own or by sending support requests to NCH.
Good Luck