VOIP Tech Chat → anyone using fax succsessfully with 8X8 ?

Hi,

I have been trying to find a viop provider that i can use as a second line for my fax and also to make international calls at decent rates.

I ordered voiceglo but they are taking forever to deliver and i am thinking of canceling (three weeks now)

I am particularly interested in if anyone is using 8X8 for a fax line as they seem to have good rates.

thanks

said by washsqpk:

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Hi,
I am particularly interested in if anyone is using 8X8 for a fax line as they seem to have good rates.

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My understanding is that Packet8 doesn't support faxing, although they are working on an upgrade that will.

I use »j2.com for faxing. They give you your own phone number for about $12 per month. Incoming faxes are received by their server and arrive as message attachments in your mailbox. You either scan outgoing documents or "print" them directly from an application to the fax driver, which sends them to the J2 server. There are other competing services. You can't use a fax machine, but having electronic copies of all faxes does make filing easy. And you can use OCR to convert incoming faxes to text.

I use Vonage to send all my faxes and to receive some faxes and I use efax.com to receive some faxes.

Vonage works well for faxing, but it seems to be a little more sensitive to poor connection to the internet than voice calls are. You can get an extra fax line (for around 10 bucks) or you can use your primary line for faxes.

said by Cam:

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I use Vonage to send all my faxes and to receive some faxes and I use efax.com to receive some faxes.

Vonage works well for faxing, but it seems to be a little more sensitive to poor connection to the internet than voice calls are. You can get an extra fax line (for around 10 bucks) or you can use your primary line for faxes.

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Same here... The free efax.com account (if you don't care about the area code - and why should you for fax) works great for me... I get maybe 2 faxes a month - everybody else is using email)...

I have tried unsuccessfully many times to get a 300 baud connection to work on Packet8, every codec.

I either kill the modem, or the DTA and when it's the DTA I end up with a broadcast storm on my network.

The problem with faxing over VOIP is the codec you're using. Most voice codecs allow for dropped data packets and irregularly timed packet arrivals and save on bandwidth overhead by using compression. All three of these factors work against faxing. Fax machines expect all data to arrive in the correct order and within certain time parameters. Often latency or dropped packets causes your fax machine to drop it's connection.

I've read that one codec that works well with faxing is the G.711 codec. This method of transporting fax traffic takes a constant 64kbps stream of data plus its IP overhead. To correct for latency, the speed is changed from 20ms to 10ms,
Packet redundancy may also be used to mitigate the effects of packet loss. Even so, faxing over VOIP remains susceptible to packet loss, jitter, and latency in the IP network. The two endpoints must be clocked synchronously for this type of transport to work predictably.

From reading other posts about faxing, P8 doesn't seem to support it at all. Vonage seems to support faxing pretty good as long as you keep your fax machine's speed at or below 9600.

Using the G.711a codec on my DTAs allows me to FAX, both from a FAX machine and from my desktop via a FAXmodem. I also get improved voice. The down side is it takes more bandwidth.

When you change the codec, are you still getting ring? If this works, this is very hot!

I could dump my Vonage line that is now $33.99 + $9.99 + $1.50 + $1.50 + $1.40 (fet) $48.38

And go with 2 Packet8 lines for 19.99 x 2 + fet = $41.17 AND get local exchange numbers...

Hmmm Very tempting after the Cisco BYOA fiasco...

wkendrvr, if you do it...good luck. This is the first person I have ever heard say that they were able to fax on on P8, even the huge proponents of P8 don't say that. Add to this that the only person who has said it is a first time anonymous poster to the forum, and it sounds a little "questionable". I think I even remember people saying that incoming DTMF didn't work on P8, so I am really wondering how you are going to get fax tones to work properly.

Yes thats correct no DTMF, I have a plain jane AT&T answering machine hooked up to my P8.

I can't check the messages, HOWEVER you can hear me pounding the buttons over and over again, I wish I could get it to respond to that!

I agree with Cam, 2 weeks ago I was able to change my Packet8 codec to G.729 and it was working for a while but when I tried G.711 at that time I couldn't get incoming calls, I think Packet8 keep changing things because yesterday I tried to get to any codec other than G.723 and my phone was not working at all incoming or outgoing, dials out but doesn't connect the call, so I reset it back to G.723 and everything is good now.

I havent used the DTA in a while but faxing should work...

You have a better chance doing food over IP than fax with Packet8

I have done fax over Packet8. I doubt that incoming would work but outgoing most certainly works.

Give me your (non P8) fax number and I will send you a fax....

Man-Machine:

Are you faxing using the default codec or did you enable
another from the list and if so, which?

Very interested in how you did it..

tHeMeW

I am using G711u. G723 cannot be used for faxing, thus you will be unable to receive inbound faxes since G723 is forced on inbound calls.

We have the business plan with multiple endpoints. All the DTAs feed into our Panasonic DBS phone switch. The FAX line is only used for outbound calls, voice and FAX, so I have no clue if it rings.
I think it is true P8 is changing the configuration. I FAXed fine for a couple of weeks, then it started working only sometimes, then worked fine again then got spotty. I monitored the LAN/WAN and it was not traffic.