Call waiting?

Hi, I'm using WindowsXP (Home Version) and have a separate telephone line for the computer. A couple of times I have received a message on the screen saying I had a call. This line doesn't have "Call Waiting, ID, or any other extra features. I am now considering dropping my extra telephone line and would like to know if there is a utility with XP that will take my "Call Waiting" calls and alert me online or leave a message for the caller when I use my main telephone line. If so how do I find it and set it up? If not can anyone recommend a third party utility to use for this purpose? Thanks for any help.

 

I've received those "call waiting" messages, too...and I have DSL! The ones I've seen are ads for software or a service that's supposed to alert you when you're on a dialup and have a call.

I don't know there's anything which comes with XP that'll alert you to an incoming call, although someone else might.

Do a Google search for "call waiting." I got 2,890,000 hits. Surely somewhere in there is something that'll do what you need.

 

I used this for a long time. It's certainly cheaper than a second phone. You may even find one of these things free somewhere. It pops up when you receive a call-waiting call, and you can listen to the message the person left you to decide if you want to go offline to call them back:

http://www.pagoo.com

http://internetcallwaiting.paluma.com/

You can certainly look through those 2,890,000 results. If you can do one each second and don't sleep, it will only take you 34 days!

 

I presume you have dialup. When I had DSL it was through the phone company and came over the same line as the regular phone. I could surf and talk on the phone at the same time using only one line.

 

This might be of interest.

 

my input for whatever its worth:

when i used windows 98 i used a program called "Call station ". as far as i remember it was free, but even if its not now its a great program. it combines voice mail (works just like an answering machine but better, with more options), has a pop up window that says who is calling, the phone number, etc.. even has text to speech options so the computer can "speak" who is calling and the number over the speakers. all of this is configurable, of course. the only reason i am not using this program now is because creative is currently not supporting WINXP version drivers for the caller ID, data/fax modem i have installed. so the modem doesnt function as it did on windows 98. but all in all, a great program. im sure a search on google for "Callstation" will bring it up. if not get in touch with me and ill help you find it.

also, if you enable windows included fax program, and set it to manual answer.. an icon will come up in your system tray alerting you to incoming calls.. (no caller id support or anything, of course.) i use this now as sometimes my cordless phone is in another room or music is playing and it gives me a visual for when an incoming call is in. i could also click the icon to answer the call as a fax (or to avoid the person thats calling). hope i helped