Fax Machine Questions

[frederic]

As before, we are very pleased with PIAF and how it works overall. We use a telco-provided trunk for incoming/outbound calls and for handsets we use a variety of devices - some wired, some SIP phones, some wifi SIP phones (Linksys WIP330's mostly), and of course for the true geeks of our company there are Nokia N810 internet tablets using the built-in SIP client.

All of the above works astoundingly well and we must admit using PAIF for less than a year has significantly cost less than maintaining a "regular" PBX system.

Where we are struggling is with the installation of an ordinary dumb fax machine.

It seems "odd" to define it as an extension, and have clients and vendors dial our main number and then in turn a set of pauses, then the extension - or force them to manually dial then press "send".

So I am curious, does PAIF "hear" fax tones instead of voice, and if it does, can it "automatically" route to a fax machine plugged into a zaptel card port?

Or should we go back to the old method of taking one of our incoming analog lines and plugging the fax machine in directly and remove that line from the incoming pool?

We'd prefer the former, but can tolerate the latter. BTW, "fax" being a three letter word, is not allowed by the forum search engine otherwise we'd have searched more thoroughly than we did.

 

[thunderheart]

This is a subject ...

... covered ad nauseum. Go to google and type this:

"site: pbxinaflash.com FAX"

You will then be inundated. We use our FAX machine for outgoing only and a FAX to email gateway for incoming. I've never tried to get FAX tone recognition to work but I believe it is theoretically possible, since the configuration options for it exist.

Dallas

P.S.: The "site: pbxinaflash.com XXX" method works for any three character (or less) search.

 

[jroper]

In places where I have installed Fax machines on the PBX I have used the following technique.

I've installed an FXS port, and plugged in the existing fax line into the FXO ports along with the other lines. (BRI or analogue)

Any call that comes in on the fax line is directed to the fax machine FXS extension.

The Fax makes outbound calls using any available line, but can be forced if necessary with a prefix to use one particular line.

Given that in many cases the fax is rarely used, this gives the company a choice to use the fax line as an extra outbound capacity without having to pay rental on a another line.

Other than that, I would keep the faxing separate, either on a dedicated box with fax modem(s), or an old fashioned fax plugged into a dedicated line.

Joe

 

[wardmundy]

Fairly reliable, software-based faxing IN and OUT of your PBX with no POTS lines really is coming... really.

 

[madjeff]

Fairly reliable, software-based faxing IN and OUT of your PBX with no POTS lines really is coming... really.

I really hate to ask, but I'm currently fighting getting a fax machine running as an extension here in the office and the results have been spotty.

Do you have a ballpark timeframe on this? Are we talking days, weeks, months? Not trying to push, just trying to figure out if I need to continue to fight this or wait for your usual great and easy to implement solution to the faxing problem. =)

 

[thunderheart]

Fax extension

I started trying to get the incoming Fax working with my HT286 (grandstream single port SIP to FXS converter) and haven't had much luck. I can get the system to detect the fax signal and route it to the extension very reliably. The fax machine answers and tries to handshake with the remote machine. It sounds pretty good but unfortunately, it never successfully negotiates a connection and ultimately fails. I'm playing with the TX/RX gains now to see if that is the problem.

Wondering what others have experienced. Is this failure mode common with folks trying this kind of setup? Since outgoing works fine, I would have expected it to rock if I could detect the incoming request and properly route it to the local machine.

Dallas