bob,
i was more interested in something emulating a vt100 that one could eventually plug to a console port and chat with the box...
from someone's post sooner in this thread it seemed that someone is using it out there...
i like the idea of "talking" with the box while let's say driving a car...
e.g. vocollect does something close to this but it's more an in-building solution than an over-the-phone stuff
http://www.vocollect.com/sitehtml/products/talkman01.php
maybe it would be worth making some mediation to pstn and a proxy app which could ssh the boxes 