Faxing Is Taxing The VOIP Technology

Although not as serious a shortcoming as emergency calls and maintaining power during blackouts, a reliable mode for providing fax service would greatly broaden the overall acceptance of VOIP service. So far sending and receiving faxes over VOIP has challenged the industry and has not yet been technically solved.

The Problem

The central difficulty originates from the fact that faxes are a different kind of data than voice. Voice data has to be delivered in real time, in order to maintain an easy conversation exchange. If some voice data is lost en route, it doesn't matter. Fax data can, to some extent, be delayed in order to guarantee that it is completely together. If fax data is lost enroute, though, it creates errors in the transmission.

There have been many efforts to deal with this problem. Some solutions seem to work some of the time, but none of them are 100% successful. Some VOIP service providers have experimented with slowing down the speed of the data transmission or using a specific codec. Some users have reported partial success, but it's still a dicey situation.

If you're interested in trying to send faxes via your VOIP connection, make sure first that your service provider supports this function. If they do, they will likely provide you with instructions on how to modify your VOIP settings. You can probably start by setting the codec to 711u. Some VOIP users have reported that this is the only change they had to make to successfully send and receive faxes. Others report that they must also lower the fax baud rate to 9600. It's worth checking whether your VOIP provider might suggest other fax settings.

Efax

All these changes in settings are probably just hit or miss. If you're successful in getting the fax function to work, that's great! But if a dependable fax service is essential for you, you should probably keep a dedicated telephone line or subscribe to one of the many available efax services.

Fax via e-mail is a good solution. Monthly or yearly subscriptions are available at a comparatively low rate. Some allow an unlimited number while others charge by number of pages. There are several efax companies to check out. Your most economical choice will depend on the amount of faxing you expect to do.

Computer documents can usually be sent without an intermediate step. Paper documents, however, need to be scanned before they are sent. The fax is then sent as an e-mail attachment to the intermediary fax service, which forwards it through a standard fax machine. The fax service company also provides you with a fax number where you can receive faxes. Then the process is reversed. Faxes sent to this number are converted to an e-mail attachment and forwarded to your preferred e-mail address.

Efax allows you to send and receive faxes via e-mail. Some VOIP service providers may include this feature in their service package.