I made a program in PHP that generates some text output.
I plan to convert this to audio using a text to voice routine, and I think I have that angle taken care of.
Once I have the audio data my challenge is to:
Any thoughts on how to do this?
other than it being slightly illegal? the FCC just made it illegal for companies to use computers to dial phones. Only 2 ways around it, be a senator or get my permission 
Weird. Uh, OK, how do I get your permission?
I don’t mind subscribing to a service, having a dedicated line, etc, but I just want to figure out how to call this number automatically (it’s a transcription service and I want the text to be transcribed)
Yes, it is absurd, I am starting with text, converting to audio, playing it over a telephone line to a transcriptionist, who is then converting it back to text and giving me a copy of the text.
It is a ridiculous workaround for our computer setup at work but my only option at this point.
It is NOT illegal to dial a phone number from or by a computer.
It IS illegal to blind-call, “COLD-CALL” or randomly call numbers.
Now, the major problem with this project is the MODEM. A modem is a hardware device that the phone system is connected to. I use one on a system to dial out to give me messages. BUT, to do this, I had to program a locally running system to use the hardware on that computer. To do this on a website is going to be very hard to do as the MODEM on each computer will be different. Well, the main issue is the COMPORT that is used. You could have an option for the user to assign that.
Here is a link for a small script that someone was using. They had one minor error which was fixed, but, you can get the idea of the code. Hope that helps…
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2634370/dial-windows-serial-modem-from-php