FOIP (Fax over IP)
 

I'm looking for information on sending faxes on a small scale over IP.
(FOIP). In particular I'd like to make use of one of my many SIP
accounts to transmit the fax information. I know they need special
codecs and I'll figure out which of my SIP accounts support the
appropriate fax codecs once I have a server I want to use.

What I need help finding is a FOIP server that can interface with a
SIP/VOIP connection. When I google for servers, I either come up with
expensive professional software meant for large businesses, or links
to the free fax service providers. Neither of those is good for me.

I'm looking for a solution that a single person can use on either
Linux (Fedora 13) or Windows (Windows 7). I don't mind paying for the
software, but $1000+ commercial options are obviously not within my
budget.

Deb

Re: FOIP (Fax over IP)
 

On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:07:45 -0500, Deborah Weiner <debw@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>I'm looking for information on sending faxes on a small scale over IP.
>(FOIP). In particular I'd like to make use of one of my many SIP
>accounts to transmit the fax information. I know they need special
>codecs and I'll figure out which of my SIP accounts support the
>appropriate fax codecs once I have a server I want to use.
>
>What I need help finding is a FOIP server that can interface with a
>SIP/VOIP connection. When I google for servers, I either come up with
>expensive professional software meant for large businesses, or links
>to the free fax service providers. Neither of those is good for me.
>
>I'm looking for a solution that a single person can use on either
>Linux (Fedora 13) or Windows (Windows 7). I don't mind paying for the
>software, but $1000+ commercial options are obviously not within my
>budget.

I suspect you may find the range of options to be quite limited.

The problem is that fax usage, having peaked around 20 years ago, has
been in gradual decline ever since. It was already well into its
downturn long before VoIP appeared, so a developer would have been
reluctant to invest in a low-cost product and launch it into a
declining market with a limited lifespan.

Emailing scanned attachments has replaced fax for many people because
its cheaper to send, more reliable, and gives a better quality output,
especially if detailed colour documents are involved.

Chris

Re: FOIP (Fax over IP)
 

On Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:55:50 +0800, Chris Blunt <mail@nospam.com>
wrote:

>On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:07:45 -0500, Deborah Weiner <debw@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>I'm looking for information on sending faxes on a small scale over IP.
>>(FOIP). In particular I'd like to make use of one of my many SIP
>>accounts to transmit the fax information. I know they need special
>>codecs and I'll figure out which of my SIP accounts support the
>>appropriate fax codecs once I have a server I want to use.
>>
>>What I need help finding is a FOIP server that can interface with a
>>SIP/VOIP connection. When I google for servers, I either come up with
>>expensive professional software meant for large businesses, or links
>>to the free fax service providers. Neither of those is good for me.

>I suspect you may find the range of options to be quite limited.
>
>Emailing scanned attachments has replaced fax for many people because
>its cheaper to send, more reliable, and gives a better quality output,
>especially if detailed colour documents are involved.
>
>Chris

I realize faxing is archaic at this point, however many government
agencies refuse to accept emails.

Does anyone know of a solution that would allow me to fax over a
SIP/VOIP line?

Deb

Re: FOIP (Fax over IP)
 

On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 22:07:32 -0500, Deborah Weiner <debw@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:55:50 +0800, Chris Blunt <mail@nospam.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:07:45 -0500, Deborah Weiner <debw@gmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>I'm looking for information on sending faxes on a small scale over IP.
>>>(FOIP). In particular I'd like to make use of one of my many SIP
>>>accounts to transmit the fax information. I know they need special
>>>codecs and I'll figure out which of my SIP accounts support the
>>>appropriate fax codecs once I have a server I want to use.
>>>
>>>What I need help finding is a FOIP server that can interface with a
>>>SIP/VOIP connection. When I google for servers, I either come up with
>>>expensive professional software meant for large businesses, or links
>>>to the free fax service providers. Neither of those is good for me.
>
>>I suspect you may find the range of options to be quite limited.
>>
>>Emailing scanned attachments has replaced fax for many people because
>>its cheaper to send, more reliable, and gives a better quality output,
>>especially if detailed colour documents are involved.
>>
>>Chris
>
>I realize faxing is archaic at this point, however many government
>agencies refuse to accept emails.
>
>Does anyone know of a solution that would allow me to fax over a
>SIP/VOIP line?

I know this still isn't exactly what you're asking for, but there are
services such as:

http://www.faxaway.com/

and

http://www.efax.com/

which allow you to send faxes from a computer.

Chris

Re: FOIP (Fax over IP)
 

"Chris Blunt" <mail@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:is4sl69r4ggojicp00pq4ca357kirvls43@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 22:07:32 -0500, Deborah Weiner
> <debw@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:55:50 +0800, Chris Blunt
>><mail@nospam.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:07:45 -0500, Deborah Weiner
>>><debw@gmail.com>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>I'm looking for information on sending faxes on a small scale
>>>>over IP.
>>>>(FOIP). In particular I'd like to make use of one of my many
>>>>SIP
>>>>accounts to transmit the fax information. I know they need
>>>>special
>>>>codecs and I'll figure out which of my SIP accounts support
>>>>the
>>>>appropriate fax codecs once I have a server I want to use.
>>>>
>>>>What I need help finding is a FOIP server that can interface
>>>>with a
>>>>SIP/VOIP connection. When I google for servers, I either come
>>>>up with
>>>>expensive professional software meant for large businesses,
>>>>or links
>>>>to the free fax service providers. Neither of those is good
>>>>for me.
>>
>>>I suspect you may find the range of options to be quite
>>>limited.
>>>
>>>Emailing scanned attachments has replaced fax for many people
>>>because
>>>its cheaper to send, more reliable, and gives a better quality
>>>output,
>>>especially if detailed colour documents are involved.
>>>
>>>Chris
>>
>>I realize faxing is archaic at this point, however many
>>government
>>agencies refuse to accept emails.
>>
>>Does anyone know of a solution that would allow me to fax over
>>a
>>SIP/VOIP line?
>
> I know this still isn't exactly what you're asking for, but
> there are
> services such as:
>
> http://www.faxaway.com/
>
> and
>
> http://www.efax.com/
>
> which allow you to send faxes from a computer.
>
> Chris
>



Or even
http://www.faxtastic.co.uk/


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

Re: FOIP (Fax over IP)
 

In message <g1erl69fhg5ivt6cj8v02jf6dml7jttl3i@4ax.com>, Deborah Weiner
<debw@gmail.com> writes
>
>I'm looking for information on sending faxes on a small scale over IP.
>(FOIP). In particular I'd like to make use of one of my many SIP
>accounts to transmit the fax information. I know they need special
>codecs and I'll figure out which of my SIP accounts support the
>appropriate fax codecs once I have a server I want to use.
>
>What I need help finding is a FOIP server that can interface with a
>SIP/VOIP connection. When I google for servers, I either come up with
>expensive professional software meant for large businesses, or links
>to the free fax service providers. Neither of those is good for me.
>
>I'm looking for a solution that a single person can use on either
>Linux (Fedora 13) or Windows (Windows 7). I don't mind paying for the
>software, but $1000+ commercial options are obviously not within my
>budget.
>
Having read the follow ups to this I guess I'm missing something!

I have an HP Officejet 6500 printer/fax on a VOIP number from
www.voip.co.uk Outgoing calls are via one of several Betamax companies,
which one is determined by dialling rules to give the lowest cost
routing.

I send and receive faxes from all over the world without a problem. I
can also fax direct from Word by selecting the Officejet fax function as
the printer.

What am I missing?

Malcolm

Re: FOIP (Fax over IP)
 

Deborah Weiner wrote:
> I'm looking for information on sending faxes on a small scale over IP.
> (FOIP). In particular I'd like to make use of one of my many SIP
> accounts to transmit the fax information. I know they need special
> codecs and I'll figure out which of my SIP accounts support the

Actually, done properly, they don't use codecs at all over the VoIP leg.
The fax data is demodulated, or never modulated, at the source, and is
sent as the raw digital stream, only being modulated if it breaks out
onto a 3.1kHz audio channel. There may be some error correction added,
I guess.

> appropriate fax codecs once I have a server I want to use.

If you are going to send fax without doing it properly, you simply need
G.711 A-Law (assuming you are not in North America) all the way to the
circuit switched network break out. The difficulty is that you need no
dropped packets and no jitter buffer re-alignments for it to work reliably.

Re: FOIP (Fax over IP)
 

David Woolley wrote:

>If you are going to send fax without doing it properly, you simply need
>G.711 A-Law (assuming you are not in North America) all the way to the
>circuit switched network break out. The difficulty is that you need no
>dropped packets and no jitter buffer re-alignments for it to work reliably.

Experience suggests that fax-over-SIP works for some people until it
suddenly stops working for no apparent reason.

Doing "proper" fax over IP requires T.38, but implementation seems to be
spotty and inconsistent.

Re: FOIP (Fax over IP)
 

On 18/02/2011 00:07, Deborah Weiner wrote:
>
> I'm looking for information on sending faxes on a small scale over IP.
> (FOIP). In particular I'd like to make use of one of my many SIP
> accounts to transmit the fax information. I know they need special
> codecs and I'll figure out which of my SIP accounts support the
> appropriate fax codecs once I have a server I want to use.
>
> What I need help finding is a FOIP server that can interface with a
> SIP/VOIP connection. When I google for servers, I either come up with
> expensive professional software meant for large businesses, or links
> to the free fax service providers. Neither of those is good for me.
>
> I'm looking for a solution that a single person can use on either
> Linux (Fedora 13) or Windows (Windows 7). I don't mind paying for the
> software, but $1000+ commercial options are obviously not within my
> budget.
>
> Deb

Are you already using VoIP for voice calls, with an ordinary analog
telephone plugged into an ATA or into a router which has built-in VoIP
support?

If so, you should be able to send and receive faxes by plugging a fax
machine[1] into one channel of your ATA instead of a phone - I certainly
can. You would, of course, have to print the document first and then
feed it into the fax machine.

If you want to send it direct from the computer, I don't see why you
can't use a fax/modem connected to an ATA. Most fax/modems come bundled
with software which looks like a printer driver to the OpSys (Windows
anyway - don't know about Linux)- so you simply 'print' outgoing faxes
to this device.

[1] Since the use of faxes is going out of fashion big time, lots of fax
machines are given away on the likes of Freecycle, so you can probably
pick one up for free if you haven't already got one. Or, as others have
said, some 'all-in-one' machines can send faxes directly - and I've seen
quite a few of those offered on Freecycle/Freegle too.
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

Re: FOIP (Fax over IP)
 

"Deborah Weiner" <debw@gmail.com> wrote in message news:g1erl69fhg5ivt6cj8v02jf6dml7jttl3i@4ax.com...
>
> I'm looking for information on sending faxes on a small scale over IP.
> (FOIP). In particular I'd like to make use of one of my many SIP
> accounts to transmit the fax information. I know they need special
> codecs and I'll figure out which of my SIP accounts support the
> appropriate fax codecs once I have a server I want to use.
>
> What I need help finding is a FOIP server that can interface with a
> SIP/VOIP connection. When I google for servers, I either come up with
> expensive professional software meant for large businesses, or links
> to the free fax service providers. Neither of those is good for me.
>
> I'm looking for a solution that a single person can use on either
> Linux (Fedora 13) or Windows (Windows 7). I don't mind paying for the
> software, but $1000+ commercial options are obviously not within my
> budget.
>
> Deb

Have you tried sending a fax over the existing hardware you are using for voice?
I occasionally send faxes via smartvoip and they seem to be received OK, I just sent
a two page fax from Microsoft Fax with a lot of graphics to myself via a fax to email service, and I received it
flawlessly.

For the record the hardware is a Lynksys PAP2 ATA which I think is negotiating
a G711u codec with Smartvoip. All echo cancellation is enabled incidently, if
I had a problem sending faxes, the first thing I would do is disable those settings.

The Fax to email service I use for incoming faxes is from ukddi.com, free, and a normal
geographic number.

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%