Phones don't use a modem, cos' they are analogue devices, the purpose of a modem is to convert a digital signal to analogue in order to send it down the phone line (a medium that was never intended for such a purpose).
a phone cable works in the same way as a speaker cable does on you stereo system it is simply sending an electrical wave with an amplitude (hight) of the wave being changed by your vioce.
OK fo3nix, I see where you're coming from, I think.
One could view the exchange as a sort of modem, except of course it's doing the opposite, converting analogue to digital at one end and digital to analogue at the other.
DTMF is a voice-frequency analogue signal.
Hopefully Wix will re-post and explain what he meant ;-)