FOOD FOR THOUGHT Fax over Voip works for me, how about you?

MikeD

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A couple of years ago, I tried fax over voip with a number of providers and nothing worked well. Ultimately every attempt was fraught with fax compatibility issues (basically a failure to negotiate line speed).

For the last couple of months, I have been enjoying trouble free service using an Optimum SIP trunk, PAP2's and PIAF of course. I have three fax machines, 1 at main office, 2 remote, all setup with extensions and DIDs.

Honestly, this is working better than my old POTS lines which surprises the hell out of me and allowed me to cancel all three of my POTS lines.

Just curious if there is something special about Optimum's new SIP trunk service, or if the state of VOIP has improved this much in the last couple of years, or if, I am just lucky?

Mike
 

kenn10

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Google Voice trunks also are excellent for faxing.
I keep a Google Voice trunk at each location just for faxing although I have found that FlowRoute is also a dependable trunk for faxing. I do it through an old PAP2T and PIAF. I have a special route just for faxing from those devices which selects Flowroute 1st and Google Voice as a backup trunk.

I've never been able to fax reliably via Vitelity, Aretta (now Birch Telecom) or Anveo Direct. Heck, I was never able to fax over a POTS line connected via PIAF. I'm pleased that some of the providers seem to be stable enough to use.
 

oneradioboy

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I agree. Google Voice works flawlessly. I've had very good success using a SmartATA by NetGen Communications, http://www.netgencommunications.com/smart-ata-details/

I have the SmartATA connected as an extension on my PIAF hosted on DigitalOcean. The ata has hunt group capabilities so with one DID it rolls to the next FXO port on my on-site fax server. I'm using Siptrunk.com as my VOIP provider for inbound calls. With all the hops around the country the SmartATA works perfectly 99.9% of the time.
 
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A couple of years ago, I tried fax over voip with a number of providers and nothing worked well. Ultimately every attempt was fraught with fax compatibility issues (basically a failure to negotiate line speed).

For the last couple of months, I have been enjoying trouble free service using an Optimum SIP trunk, PAP2's and PIAF of course. I have three fax machines, 1 at main office, 2 remote, all setup with extensions and DIDs.

Honestly, this is working better than my old POTS lines which surprises the hell out of me and allowed me to cancel all three of my POTS lines.

Just curious if there is something special about Optimum's new SIP trunk service, or if the state of VOIP has improved this much in the last couple of years, or if, I am just lucky?

Mike
Isn't Optimum SIP rather pricey and requires a minimum number of SIP trunks? or did you mean a single analog line that their ata-router provides.
 

atsak

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My experience has been that it works flawlessly sometimes for a while, then all in the sudden stops. I suspect this has to do with back end routing at various carriers. With or without T38 hasn't really mattered. Just this week an inbound fax service from one of my carriers I've used for years suddently stopped working for Canadian numbers, and certain outbound faxes stopped working as well (just to Canada). What has worked reliably for me was Vitelity's HTTP fax (they call it Fax Enable). The SIP carriers here I guess don't do a good job of T38.

I've been able to get it to work, sometimes for a long time, but then it stops. So I tell people if 99% is good enough for you, then I can do it, but otherwise can't.

Same goes for alarm systems over SIP - have had them working for a couple years using reverse DSL filters, Obi 200's and Anveo or voip.ms termination. But then one day they just stop . . . usually start working on their own a few days later again.
 

MikeD

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Thanks for all of the feedback. It is interesting to hear what you have found with faxing.

With the nature of my business, faxing is still an important part of the day's process. Eight to 12 page faxes are in and out all day long.

The faxing over VOIP was literally a fortunate event that was a short-term fix that worked out. As part of a move, The POTS line was not setup in the new office, I had no choice but to call-forward my fax line into the the sip trunk. That line never got installed and as I mentioned, the other two were cancelled.

Optimum's SIP Trunk service is different than their Optimum Voice service. For four sessions and ten DIDs, it costs $120/month (minimum buy-in). And yes this is more expensive than many providers, but I felt the service was worth the extra as it seemed to promise as-close-as-I-can-get direct connection to the PSTN. The SIP-trunk endpoint is on my LAN and the traffic is segregated on their network for the best QOS. Call quality between local and remote extensions (both on and off the Optimum network) is FM-radio quality with no lag, echo, or choppiness that I have ever experienced. Also, remote extensions saves big-time on the need for more sessions.

The regular Optimum voice product does not support faxing (from my experience) and seems to be more susceptible to issues.typical of shared broadband.

I am not shilling for Optimum, just relating my experience. Optimum just happens to be the only local provider of broadband in my area.

Mike
 

wardmundy

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99% is the story of fax, period. So SIP is no better and probably not much worse. In another life before the Internet, we had federal courts that were using Intel's SatisFAXtion boards to send documents between sites. Just like with faxing, it worked about 99% of the time. Then it would lose something really important. Wouldn't even show up in the logs. If you were the guy sitting on death row with the emergency motion to stay your execution, you probably didn't need the added pressure of joining the 1% Club. :gun bandana:
 

krzykat

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With the newer Asterisk 13, fax seems to be better. By recompiling asterisk to include SpanDSP, telling Asterisk to use T38, and using T38 ATA's, I've seen very good success. T38fax.com seems to not fail. They can be a little pricier than others, but when push comes to shove, they work. Something that's really cool about their website, is that they allow you to test other carriers and tells you if they do T38 with ECM correctly. They will allow you to test both inbound and outbound and I highly recommend doing so to see what your fax setup is doing instead of just guessing and knowing that it seems to be working.
 

KUMARULLAL

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@MikeD. I spoke to optimum. In order for them to provide sip trunk, they insist on having internet services through them as well Plus, they only service the tri state area. optimumbusinenss.com is what I am talking about. Are you referring to the same provider?
@krzykat WHat is your experience with voip.ms for faxing. I am using them but it fails intermittently.
I am using asterisk 11. It stopped working suddenly. Then I enables t38 In the sip setting, it worked for a while, now again it fails intermittenly. I have several DID's already assigned as fax numbers for users. Therefore I am stuck. I cannot move to another service provider for faxing.
Is there anything that can be done to make it more stable wth voip.ms?
 

MikeD

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@KUMARULLAL -- Yes, Optimum is a brand name of Cablevision who is a local Broadband provider servicing the New Yor, New Jersey, and Connecticut tri-state area. In other words, my local cable company. FIOS is not yet available in my area.

One thing I forgot to mention was that they do not officially support fax service (which I used this morning to send a 50 page fax). Just don't mention it. You will save time in the sales and setup calls.

As further clarification, their endpoint on my network is a dedicated Edgewater 4550 and Arris TM1602 which allow for separate physical networks, vlan, or overlay.
 

krzykat

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@MikeD.
@krzykat WHat is your experience with voip.ms for faxing. I am using them but it fails intermittently.
I am using asterisk 11. It stopped working suddenly. Then I enables t38 In the sip setting, it worked for a while, now again it fails intermittenly. I have several DID's already assigned as fax numbers for users. Therefore I am stuck. I cannot move to another service provider for faxing.
Is there anything that can be done to make it more stable wth voip.ms?

Sorry - I don't use Voip.ms - no experience on it.
 

MikeD

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@islandtech -- Faxsipit sounds interesting -- I looked over the website and couldn't find any pricing information. Any ideas on how this prices out?
 

islandtech

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I couldn't find it either so I pulled an invoice
DID's .90/month
ATA data channel 8.00/month
each DID needs an ata data channel
free incoming
.04/min outgoing
$20 to port
Took 2 days to port 1 number
 

richlink

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I agree. Google Voice works flawlessly. I've had very good success using a SmartATA by NetGen Communications, http://www.netgencommunications.com/smart-ata-details/

I have the SmartATA connected as an extension on my PIAF hosted on DigitalOcean. The ata has hunt group capabilities so with one DID it rolls to the next FXO port on my on-site fax server. I'm using Siptrunk.com as my VOIP provider for inbound calls. With all the hops around the country the SmartATA works perfectly 99.9% of the time.

I am having problems getting my freepbx to work with my smartata I can get the analog phone to register as an extension but cannot get receive or send outside calls. Keeps telling me "all circuit are busy now" Can you please give me some help I have spent hours trying to get it to work with Freepbx 13. Thanks
 

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