<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Oct 24, 2008, at 12:49 PM, Wilton Helm wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font face="Arial" size="2">I've been following this thread and trying to sort out what is wanted, what is available, and why. Comments to the following would be appreciated and might be useful to others.</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">1. Why would anyone originate a FAX via VoIP? If it has to go through a bunch of translation steps at both ends, it would seem better to simply scan the document (assuming it isn't in electronic form to begin with) and attach it to an E-Mail.</font></div></div></span></blockquote><div><br></div>Because I don't want to pay to have one single POTS line running into my office when it's sole purpose is for fax. I would much rather get that fax into my asterisk in some intelligent manner and have one less company to pay.<br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">2. Why would anyone terminate a FAX call coming through Asterisk in a FAX machine? Isn't there a way to capture it electronically? If so, it seems that putting the electronic documents in a queue where people can open them, save them, and if they wish, print them would be much more useful (and planet friendly, since a lot aren't worth putting on paper).</font></div></div></span></blockquote>I fully intend to do this, once the faxes gets into my * I email it off to someone.<br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">IMHO, there are only three realistic needs:</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">A. Electronic end to end document transfer which is best done with E-Mail and not telephony.</font></div></div></span></blockquote>As others have already mentioned, faxing is still around due to user ease and legal reasons. : ( <br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">B. Receipt of FAX from outside (old school) sources, which is best done electronically.</font></div></div></span></blockquote>I agree.<br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">C. Generation of FAX to outside (old school) destination, which could be done either electronically or in the traditional manner.</font></div></div></span></blockquote>My user base is fairly intelligent, so I will most likely be doing this, but we still have a need to be able to fax someone outside our organization, for that reason we still must have a reliable way to get faxes to plain old fax machines. I hope to do this with a solution that converts an email into a fax then sends it off into the normal analog tubes.<br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">If end to end FAX is desired, is there any reason why Asterisk should treat it any differently than any other call? The FAX machines on each end generate and decode the information, VoIP is simply an audio channel through which is passes.</font></div></div></span></blockquote>Voip is a bit too loose of a term for describing this process when it comes to faxes. For the audio signals your speaking of to be recognized the standard analog audio range must come through clearly, lossy voice codecs hack that spectrum up to save bandwidth. While this is ok for humans, it kills the fax signal. This is what t.37 and t.38 try to fix. You can go read up on them elsewhere, but basically they allow faxes to be sent in a packetized manner that can coexist well on a data network. The trouble obviously being that normal (most anyways, some support t.38... as Steve`Underwood has been saying, albeit somewhat buggily) fax machines can't understand this. This is why t.38 must be decoded at some point before getting sent to a plain fax machine.</div><div><br></div><div>And that is why I am looking for a way to decode/encode my faxes with t.38, to avoid having to pay a phone company for one analog line that would get used at most a few times a week.<br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">I don't know what T38 defines or implies, but if it is anything other than how to electronically decode a voice call that happens to contain FAX information (rather than passing it on to a real FAX machine) then I'm not sure what use it is. It would seem to me that the OP needs a way to electronically capture calls that turn out to be FAXes.</font></div></div></span></blockquote><div>Right, see above.</div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">Wilton</font></div><div><br></div></div></span></blockquote></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Anyways, I hope that helped you understand my desire to set things up how I am trying to. I'm sure a lot of people are trying to do this / have tried / have done it. Hopefully this thread will help those having trouble figuring out how this is done when they start googling. : )</div><div><br></div><div>Brendan Martens</div></body></html>