RECOMMENDATIONS An oldie but goodie - Faxing

[Brianmac]

I'm helping a friend look into switching his business over to VOIP. 5 POTS lines(4 voice, 1 fax) that if the main number is busy, next call rolls to next line(the other DiD's are never called). Being victimized(or paying for ignorance...) by local phone company(NY-Long Island)....
The issue is Faxing, no way to get them to switch their mindset on using fax. Orders come in through fax machine(in general office area that all have access to) and are placed. 4/5 of faxes are incoming. Outgoing might be blacking out some info on order and sending to a vendor.

The only solutions I can find, keep one POTS line(which kills me for for costs) or Vitality FAX Device(which is pretty reasonable $25/month).

Any other solutions that our 99% reliable? A fax machine has to be used, eFax won't work....

Thanks for any feedback!
Brian

 

[mainenotarynet]

I am no shill but I have a VOIP.ms number strictly for faxes, and that is $1.00/month -- get an ATA (I have Grandstream HT702 (a 701 should do for DediFax purposes) ).

Set the fax to go straight to the extension in the new system and DO NOT set to detect faxes as it is not necessary the ATA will take care of that (and set the Fax to auto answer anyways)

I don't send or receive many faxes but this does work (have had it for > 6 years this way.

 

[Brianmac]

mainenotarynet - thanks I appreciate your help. I have done something like this in the past, BUT faxing is critical to this business and they receive 350\send 150 faxes on average a month. I myself use a Obi202 for home\fax and works fine, but I'm not using fax much(once a month)...

 

[krzykat]

Use T38Fax.com - you'll get 100% success. I send out more 100's of faxes / month with them without incident.

 

[mainenotarynet]

His client has a Physical machine by what OP states, they didn't ask for a web option, because there are others too and the avantfax built into IncrediblePBX. There is also efax and trustfax and...

A quick chechk of t38 is minimum $9/mo (trunk and local number) to $12/Month (Trunk and Toll-Free Number) PLUS usage at 2.5 cents a minute

VoipMS works just as well (maybe not 100% as I don't use it enough) and < 1 cent/minute.

It depends on what is customer wants to pay.

 

[Brianmac]

yes, physical machine and they are VERY old school. Thats why I saw the Vitelity solution and thought their ATA might be different then just a normal ATA and SIP....

 

[krzykat]

yes, physical machine and they are VERY old school. Thats why I saw the Vitelity solution and thought their ATA might be different then just a normal ATA and SIP....

I have several that use old school - and after spending a ton of time and money, I found that by using Grandstream ATA's set on T.38 in conjunction with t38fax.com - it works very well. They don't know the difference, and it makes them happy. I've had people send or receive 50 page faxes without incident. You'll still spend probably less than the $25 (very little) - but it also opens you up to the flexibility of having it on more than one fax machine at a time and the functionality that comes along with VoIP. Of course, you need to make sure that you have clean internet lines (very little packet loss) as well.

 

[MGD4me]

You are probably fighting an uphill battle. If you insist that your "current friend" replace his tried-and-true fax technology for some Star Wars solution, just remember that crap rolls downhill, and YOU are at the bottom of the hill.

I would just leave the fax POTS line alone for now, as it is a critical part of his business. You won't be very popular if (or, when) things go wrong. Concentrate only on the voice lines, and let your friend adapt to what VoIP can offer him, in the way of features, and cost savings. Later down the road, when the monthly invoice for the fax line begins to get his attention, you both can re-visit an altenative solution.

 

[Brianmac]

i'm kind of in agreement. I can't believe that people still use fax in this manner(even with HIPAA, there are other secure ways), and that VOIP world hasn't figured out a real solution...

 

[atsak]

Vitelity works fine, their solution is pretty much the same as t38fax.com as well. Either one will be suitable. I have about 50 of the Vitelity fax devices deployed, we use the per month / per use charge as we don't do that many faxes except for the people who don't understand HIPAA.

 

[Brianmac]

atsak, but don't do many faxes - that's what concerns me - thanks

 

[atsak]

atsak, but don't do many faxes - that's what concerns me - thanks

I mean per office. On a monthly basis across 50 offices we actually send about a thousand.

 

[Brianmac]

I understand, but that's like 20 per office and or per device. This office sends\receives 500 a month from one device.... hence, not that many. Not overall just at each site....

 

[atsak]

I understand, but that's like 20 per office and or per device. This office sends\receives 500 a month from one device.... hence, not that many. Not overall just at each site....

Yes, not exactly the same but relatively comparable I would say. I will say there are outages from time to time on the Vitelity platform - a couple times a year for a few hours. Not sure if T38fax.com has the same issue. Anywho, useful for comparisons.

 

[Eliad]

I have the same problem with users hanging on the old technology.
I have one physical fax machine connected to a PBX extension through a Obihai and users have no idea I use VOIP. For the incoming I use Vitelity and for outgoing I use VOIP.MS. Slowly I got the users to use the electronic IncredibleFax for the incoming faxes and they start to appreciate the benefits. Now they use a hybrid, all faxes come in electronic, to send out sometimes they use IncredibleFax sometimes they use the physical fax.

 

[Brianmac]

how reliable is the outgoing faxing? How often are they using it?

thanks,
Brian

 

[Eliad]

first they used the physical fax both ways and during that time at least 20 faxes a day total. i did not have a problem with it during that time and then I transitioned to the hybrid. When you use the IncredibleFax make sure the documents send out are not scanned color and resolution is not too high, (i think i use 150 dpi grayscale)

 

[Brianmac]

thanks for the info!!!!