Computer Faxing and Voice over IP ony solutions?

KAMAZON

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Apr 4, 2001
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www.alirazeghi.com
We are a very fax dependant company and have a state of the art voice over IP telecommunications network, which leads us with no available telephone lines, it's all IP based. I don't know what fax solutions to recommend, do you guys have any ideas? we want people to just fax from their PCs. Thanks in advance.
 

bryantp

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Jan 5, 2004
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You could subscribe to an IP faxing service since you are no longer using a POTS line.

However you could consider sharing a Fax Server among your users.
HylaFAX? is an enterprise-class system for sending and receiving facsimiles as well as for sending alpha-numeric pages.
The software is designed around a client-server architecture. Fax modems may reside on a single machine on a network and clients can submit an outbound job from any other machine on the network. Client software is designed to be lightweight and easy to port.

HylaFAX? is designed to be very robust and reliable. The fax server is designed to guard against unexpected failures in the software, in the configuration, in the hardware and in general use. HylaFAX? can support multiple modems and a heavy traffic load.

Aslo you could consider Asterisk as your PBX.

Another solution may be
MultiVOIP?

Googled:
Spirit Corp: Fax over IP Solutions Spirit Corp: Fax over IP Solutions
Cisco.com: Fax over IP solutions
 

jonnyGURU

Moderator <BR> Power Supplies
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Oct 30, 1999
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Originally posted by: KLin
I bet JonnyGURU has some ideas.

LOL! I need to search for my name more often. ;)

What's funny is I wasn't looking for posts with my name in it. I was looking for "Asterisk PBX" when this post popped up!!!!

To OP (If you're not dead by now or something): If it was truly a "state of the art VoIP solution" then it would have provisions for analog ports. If it doesn't, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn your boss may be interested in.

For example; we used Avaya's IP Office to provide telecom to an entire college campus using VoIP. Point to points strictly for VoIP go to each building on the campus. There's no analog lines run. Just a couple T's at the admin office.

The remote buildings have fax machines. Problem? No. We install an "Avaya Phone 8" which is an 8-port POT's module and plug the fax machines into it.

Of course, you can also have these ports plugged into a Fax Server like GFI's Fax Maker and send everyone their faxes via PDF.

Some fax servers even support a digital hand off from your T1. If the T1 can be channelized to a few voice channels, hook those up to a Fax Server with something like a Brooktrout BRI/PRI card in it. Depending on the PBX, you may even be able to uplink the connection through a BRI port on the PBX.

Most VoIP PBX solutions provide some sort of solution. Even Asterisk (which is what I was looking for because I have a 4-port modem I need to configure to work.) If your system is truly "state of the art" it does too. Ask your vendor.
 

jonnyGURU

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Oh.. Like Bryan said: MultiTECH is something worth looking at to: http://www.multitech.com

Yeah, it adds another layer to your network and it's more like a band-aid than anything. But it's CHEAP, EASY to configure and it WORKS.

MultiVOIP converts SIP VoIP traffic to dial tone. Just give it an IP address and tell it the IP address it needs to talk back to.

You can even hook ports up as extensions if you have a KSU! Very nice.

They even have a mini fax server for VoIP called FaxFinder: http://www.multitech.com/PRODUCTS/Families/FaxFinder/
 

wasssup

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Nov 28, 2000
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I'm currently doing tech support for Vonage, and when it comes to faxing, MOST people have issues. There are a few things we can do on our side to improve the success rate (change the packetization rate and use an uncompressed audio codec), and most times we also have to remove several echo filters (which obviously leads to echo issues with voice conversations)...

Usually once we do that you're able to fax, but in most cases it's a temporary fix and you lose the ability to fax until we try adjusting other stuff. It's even more rare to be able to use a traditional modem with VoIP.
 

Syran

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Dec 4, 2000
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Depending the the VoIP solution, did y'all look at the Unified Messaging, with fax abilities? Many solutions allow faxing from scanner & desktop as well as direct to desktop faxing. They also have analog input devices allowing your analog style phone/fax to connect to the voip solutions.
 

jonnyGURU

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Originally posted by: wasssup
I'm currently doing tech support for Vonage, and when it comes to faxing, MOST people have issues. There are a few things we can do on our side to improve the success rate (change the packetization rate and use an uncompressed audio codec), and most times we also have to remove several echo filters (which obviously leads to echo issues with voice conversations)...

Usually once we do that you're able to fax, but in most cases it's a temporary fix and you lose the ability to fax until we try adjusting other stuff. It's even more rare to be able to use a traditional modem with VoIP.


Right.. But that's a VoIP "service." I wouldn't actually expect 100% fax capabilities using a VoIP service. I think OP is talking about an on-site VoIP solution. Supposedly it's "state of the art," but if the PBX doesn't actually have a toggle to allow support for Fax transport, it needs to go back to the vendor.