This document describes the Telephony Service Provider Interface (TSPI) and explains how to create service providers for the Microsoft® Windows® family of operating systems that support the Microsoft Win32® application programming interface (API). This TSPI reference discusses many basic concepts, such as the telephony model and TAPI, that are necessary to successfully develop a telephony service provider.
TSPI defines the external interface of service providers that are implemented by vendors of telephony equipment. Service providers give access to vendor-specific equipment through a procedure-oriented dynamic-link library (DLL) interface. Installing a service provider allows Win32-based applications that use elements of telephony to access the corresponding telephony equipment.
This documentation assumes a familiarity with TAPI and the Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) reference. The intended audience is the developer experienced with programming telephony applications for the Windows environment.