[Asterisk-Users] soho fax suggestions?

[Mark Eissler]

On Feb 13, 2005, at 4:43 PM, John Novack wrote:

>  I use JFAX which I think is also known as Efax.
>  If you are open to a new fax number anywhere else in the US from your 
> home Zip code, then it is free.
>  Otherwise there is a quarterly fee.
>  AFAIK, you can't  port an existing number to them, but I could be off 
> on that.
> http://www.j2.com/jconnect/twa/page/servicesOverview

I have a free eFax number that I've maintained for testing...although 
I'm unable to fax to it via Sixtel (you begin to hear a carrier but 
within 1/2 a second it's cut off). So much for testing.

I have also used a Broadvox residential account for inbound faxing 
(they include fax-to-email as part of their feature set). But I think 
they may have broken this feature recently when they switched to a new 
VM system.

While you might not be able to port a phone number to eFax, there's 
nothing stopping you from forwarding a number to eFax.

But like I said, I've found outbound fax to be more of a problem than 
inbound. While the latter has worked well for me with Vonage and 
Voicepulse, the bigger problem is the former (outbound) as it's only 
ever worked reliably for me with a plain residential single-line 
account that I've had since May 2003. With Broadvox faxing was 
completely unreliable and often didn't work EVEN THOUGH they have T.38 
support. Here's what I learned though: just because your CPE supports 
T.38 and your provider's gateway supports T.38, that doesn't mean that 
the carrier sitting in between supports T.38. Level 3, for instance, 
doesn't support T.38 at the moment (at least, not in all markets). So 
IMHO, T.38 ain't gonna do anyone any good until it's implemented across 
the board and who the heck knows when that might happen.

While eFax, and similar services, are some sort of a solution to at 
least half the problem, I just think using these services is a kludge. 
The beauty of fax is: stick a document in at one end, dial a number, 
and the document spits out at the other end. No clumsy scanning and 
emailing involved. And while some folks think Fax is dying, I just 
don't agree. I think the technology needs to be rebuilt for IP, but I 
don't think the concept is going to go away anytime soon.

-mark

--
Mark Eissler, mark at mixtur.com
Mixtur Interactive, Inc. - at - http://www.mixtur.com