"Laura" <> wrote in message
news:efg3ic$7tb$...
>I would be more interested on wholesale providers...
> Ive checked the links and Ive checked the ATA systems.. I understand that
> they digitise the fax signal.
Yes, and that's quite silly if you think about it, because the modem inside
the fax machine works hard to convert the digitally encoded data to analog
form...
An ATA can provide one or more ports equivalent to telephone lines ("FXS
ports") to which you may connect telephone sets; and/or one or more ports
equivalent to telephone sets ("FXO ports") that can be connected to a
telephone line.
> But I was thinking on something more like skype.. But maybe Im dreaming
> too much...
If you just want to send picture from a PC to another PC, all you need is a
scanner producing an image file that you will then send in one of many
possible ways: for example, e-mail or Skype-based file transfer. The
problems begin when you want to send your pictures to actual fax machines
connected to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network).
> If I have an Broadband line in my house, and 3 computers connected to
> internet.They could be making 3 skype phone calls, but could they be
> sending 3 fax at the same time?
Well, IP is a packetized protocol, so you can share the bandwidth among
multiple independent sessions.
> WOuld this Fax over IP system be faster?, or send various at the same
> time?
Yes, but more often than not you can't just attach your fax machine(s) to
FXS ports of an ATA registered to the server of some PSTN termination
provider, even using uncompressing codecs such as G.711, because the fax
protocol is very sensitive to latency (propagation delay) and especially
jitter (random fluctuations of the latency), which on the other hand are
well tolerated by the human ear. The result is that connections that "sound
good" to a human may sometimes work for fax transmission, and sometimes
not... That's why several other mechanisms have been devised to send fax
messages over IP, ranging from store-and-forward systems such as
email-to-fax gateways (check out the free service by
www.tpc.int ) to the
T.38 protocol for realtime fax transmission.
My impression is that not much effort is currently spent on fax-over-IP
because, in the age of Internet, fax technology is increasingly perceived as
a barbarous relic of the past...
Cheers --
Enzo
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