Faxing and IP
Whats really the problem with faxing over ip... T.30 is a very precise protocol, it was designed with telephone networks in mind, and hence provides a reliable mechanism for transmitting data over a phone line.
T.30 is not very tolerant to out of sequence data, hence why faxing over ip is so problematic.
You see, when you fax over your voip line, you are "mimicking" an actual phone call, except the messages are not sent as wave's but rather ip packets that are disassembled and reassembled. What happens when there is latency and packet loss, is parts of the message are missing causing the flow of data to become out of order. The fax machines detect these errors and fail. Faxing over IP works 80% of the time at best. It could work 100% of the time if network conditions would maintain optimal response times, however, because many factors effect the network, your really taking a shot in the dark.
I have experienced decent results for some customers, we do offer it to them as a "Free" service, however it is unsupported. IF they want a reliable alternative, stick to POTS! Its legacy, but it works, or if you want to get with the times, you can simply send an email, I think that should be the de-facto standard for sending data anyway! Besides, lets look at all the environmental benefits of removing antiquated fax technology, less energy consumption, less wasted paper. WOW! Thats a great place to start! Perhaps we should start advocating email as the fax alternative. By the way, digital signatures are considered as good as physically signed ones.
Posted at 12:15AM Jun 16, 2008 by David J in General | Comments[0]