Voice logging or telephone recording, is
the practice of regularly recording audio, usually in a business situation. Most
commonly telephone lines or business radio channels are recorded. This allows
businesses to keep records, improve
customer service, increase security, and decrease errors. Although Voice
logging is synonymous with telephone recording, or phone recording, it includes
also recording the
radio and
VoIP conversations. In a
call center environment it is often called "agent monitoring" or "call
logging" The word "logging" comes from the log of calls or audio files that is
generated as each recording is made. Today there are three types phone and
radio recorders in use:
The analog tape system: Some
businesses still use older model
reel-to-reel tape to record multiple phone lines, or hook up
individual cassette or micro-cassette tape recorders up to each
individual phone. Analog tape is usually more expensive to maintain
and much less convenient to search than digital systems.
Digital systems: These are the most
commonly used today. Either they consist of A proprietary box of
hardware that hooks into the phone system or specialized hardware that
plugs into a PC in a PCI slot or by a USB cable. Some systems allow
users to remotely review telephone recordings with desktop screen
capture and quality reporting.
Software only systems: These systems
may be all-software running on industry-standard servers, or use
hardware such as a sound card on a PC, to do the work of recording and
monitoring telephone calls. Some are simple single-user systems that
typically only require a user to install the software on their PC, and
use some type of simple adapter to connect the PC to a phone. However
this type of software can usually only record a single line at a time,
and is much more limited in features. Business-class recording and
monitoring systems enable businesses of all sizes to deploy
centralized call recording and monitoring for IP telephony systems. It
is becoming easier and more affordable vs. TDM-based hardware systems.
See advanced systems below.
Some systems allow users to listen to
live conversations or to access records from any remote location over
the Internet or a local network. Besides ease of use and access to voice
messages systems usually offer a wide range of signal detection
capabilities such as extraction of dialled keys (DTMF),
Caller ID, various radio codes (Ex: CCIR Tone5) and even
Fax demodulation
