VOIP Question

smigaldi said:
It will work over VoIP.
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It will work over SOME VoIP services. I had no problem a fax machine or modem working over my Vonage. I switched to Sunrocket and it won't work. If you call tech support they tell you that no VoIP service provider will guarantee that a fax machine will work. Vonage also told me that they couldn't guarantee it'd work, but it did.
 
ausrere said:
It will work over SOME VoIP services. I had no problem a fax machine or modem working over my Vonage. I switched to Sunrocket and it won't work. If you call tech support they tell you that no VoIP service provider will guarantee that a fax machine will work. Vonage also told me that they couldn't guarantee it'd work, but it did.
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I see no reason for it not to work. Did they explain why it may not?
 
ausrere said:
It will work over SOME VoIP services. I had no problem a fax machine or modem working over my Vonage. I switched to Sunrocket and it won't work. If you call tech support they tell you that no VoIP service provider will guarantee that a fax machine will work. Vonage also told me that they couldn't guarantee it'd work, but it did.
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Fax by definition uses audio tones in the passband of the telephone system. All that is needed is a CODEC that can handle 64kbit over an 80kbit bandwidth connection, very easy in today's VoIP systems.

VoIP is supposed to be able translate that same band of audio frequencies I mentioned above and pass them via IP. The Enum specification completed in 2001 spelled out exactly how fax was to be handled by IP telephony as well as the ITU T.38 specification in 1998 for group 3 devices and the IETF FAX group wrote the RFC for FAX using VoIP. This is all pretty old, as in 2-3 years ago or longer stuff. If a VoIP system purchased today is not working for FAX there is something else wrong.

There are also several other ways instead of just using the T.38 as a CODEC in an IP system such as Fax over IP FoIP, where a FoIP gateway will encode the fax for transmission using SMTP and then be decoded at a receiving FoIP gateway is probably the most popular.
 
To get even more technial, there are different fax specifications. T.30, T.38, etc. Being in the VoIP industry, several clients of ours have issues using a particular protocol through their respective gateway/softswitch/media server network.

I'd guess thats why a particular VoIP provider doesn't gaurantee their lines for fax.
 
SkyHog said:
I see no reason for it not to work. Did they explain why it may not?
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Mostly in technospeak that I don't understand (and I speak some technospeak). But their service has been the absolute worst I've ever had to deal with. They sent me to this page: http://www.sunrocket.com/support/section/fax/ then told me that regardless of what it says, most customers don't have much success with faxing over VoIP. Of course, this is the same company that has had 3 months to give me decent service and port one phone number and can't manage it either. I'm trying to get a refund and heading back to Vonage.
 
ausrere said:
Mostly in technospeak that I don't understand (and I speak some technospeak). But their service has been the absolute worst I've ever had to deal with. They sent me to this page: http://www.sunrocket.com/support/section/fax/ then told me that regardless of what it says, most customers don't have much success with faxing over VoIP. Of course, this is the same company that has had 3 months to give me decent service and port one phone number and can't manage it either. I'm trying to get a refund and heading back to Vonage.
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I'll bet they got some CODEC cheap from China in their modems that is non-standards compliant. It saved them a couple of bucks in their equipment and now they cnnot offer the services that people want. It is probably indicative of a larger problem to ignore customer needs and just eek them out of every $$ they have by providing a minimum level of service. Switch.
 
I'm using Vonage atm and am considering going back to Landline because my DirecTiVo can't complete a bloody phone call. I have to unhook it and take it to a neighbors for it to dial in. Has to do with why some fax machines can't fax either - the data transmission speed is too fast for the ditigal phone signal or something. Not my area of expertise but its a big pain in the neck.
 
I just switched to Comcast Digital Voice and my TiVo and fax both work ok. Perhaps it's just the modems in use? Mine is an Arris.
 
Greebo said:
I'm using Vonage atm and am considering going back to Landline because my DirecTiVo can't complete a bloody phone call. I have to unhook it and take it to a neighbors for it to dial in. Has to do with why some fax machines can't fax either - the data transmission speed is too fast for the ditigal phone signal or something. Not my area of expertise but its a big pain in the neck.
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I use a network connection for my Tivo to get it's updates, I have no idea how it would work over the VoIP. I've managed to get a dial up connection with my PC modem (just to see if it'd do it) but the fax and fax modem refuses to work with Sunrocket. I plan on calling them today and canceling service and going back to Vonage. I really wish I could find a good VoIP service that offers separate voicemail boxes for each number AND can do the find me forwarding separately from each number. Sunrocket "supposedly" did that, but it has yet to work. Anyone know any other service that offers those two things? Vonage doesn't.
 
Wow, I had no idea that digital voice would cause that many problems with data transmission. That is something I need to look into out of personal curiosity now.

edit: At work, we're training a bit on how Comcast Digital Voice is going to work, and they specifically taught us that modem transmissions would work uninhibited. Now I have to investigate to see if it might be another "half truth" we've been told...
 
I have two TiVo units - my series 2 uses the network just fine. It's the DirecTiVo unit that is a DirecTV sattelite reciever AND TiVo that doesn't handle the calls.
 
smigaldi said:
Fax by definition uses audio tones in the passband of the telephone system. All that is needed is a CODEC that can handle 64kbit over an 80kbit bandwidth connection, very easy in today's VoIP systems.
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Yeahbut that's the issue. Any common fax or modem is going to assume it gets to pass what it needs in the bandwidth of an analog POTS line. The VOIP equipement may hand off an emulated POTS line but the modems are going to be a whole less tolerant about millisecornds of drops and lags that a voice caller doesn't notice.

People aren't going to go shopping for brand new equipment because there's a new, supposedly money saving, technolgy in town.
 
Greebo said:
I have two TiVo units - my series 2 uses the network just fine. It's the DirecTiVo unit that is a DirecTV sattelite reciever AND TiVo that doesn't handle the calls.
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Time to get out yer screwdriver Chuck. I have a TurboNet laying around somewhere.

http://www.9thtee.com
 
Yeah, uh, no.

I spent a fair bit of time hacking my TiVo Series 2 in order to download shows, and while I was successful it was a pita. I'm not interested in cracking the case of my DirecTiVo and voiding its warrantee as well. One of the side effects of my hacked standalone is now I can't get the HMO option to work and the hacks are now all out of date so now I can't download shows anyway *sigh*

DirecTiVo doesn't support wireless or wired networking natively, or I would be using it, trust me, but since it doesn't, I'm resigned to the minor inconvenience. At least for now. I've seen references to other people having this problem and some other creative solutions that eventually I'll try out.
 
To summarize, it sounds like the answer is "yes, no, maybe so". I just got cable internet (with Wi-Fi) set up to our FBO (no internet previously) and am thinking about getting VOIP on the pilots lounge phone, hooking the fax to it and dropping the dedicated fax phoneline. I could just about offset the cost of the internet service. Actually, I could do away with the fax machine altogether and use the desk top computer but it will take awhile to get a non-computer savy airport manager comfortable with it. If I don't get VOIP, outgoing via the computer would be email attachments only as the lounge phone doesn't have long distance access. Incoming could be faxes through a fax modem since long distance isn't an issue for incoming (or VOIP).
 
Went back to Vonage today, and my fax works just fine (as does the fax modem). Now, if only they'd add two voice mail boxes and "find me" forwarding for individual numbers.
 
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