[Asterisk-Users] FAX, IAX and *....Maybe I'm dreaming...:-)

[Carl Youngblood]

Hi Jeff,
I live in Provo and I think I understand the application you're 
referring to.  Some folks in my neighborhood have been getting to be the 
beta testers for these cool new fiber links that the city is supposed to 
be laying out.  If I only lived a few blocks over, I would be able to 
get one too.  Darn.  Anyway, I've been following this thread, and I'm 
wondering if an alternative might be to provide some sort of fax jack on 
the hardware you provide the customer that your network could notice and 
then treat differently from regular voice data?

An even better alternative would be if asterisk could recognize a fax 
machine on the end of the line and use a different protocol or codec 
that would work with faxes. It sounds like some of the contributors to 
this thread were saying this is possible.  But I'm not sure--I'm pretty 
new to asterisk and VoIP in general, so I could be wrong.

Carl

ProvoCityPower wrote:

> >Did DVD players have to accommodate VHS tapes? Did VHS players have to
> >accept beta?
>
> >Why does VoIP have to deal with an accent protocol that can't handle
> >lossy audio, nor irregular delays?
>
> >Also why should we be soo wasteful when fax machines need a 80K codec to
> >get the data across IP, and the faster machines I see say 15 secs per
> >page. So why should we send 1.2meg when 150k is fine?
>
> >Also who says Fax should ever be required on IP? My office has been
> >using VoIP for all voice traffic for over a year now, but always left
> >the fax machine on a analog line. The analog line was cheap enough to
> >not be a concern.
> >--
> >Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com <mailto:critch at basesys.com>>
>  
> I'm fairly new here and don't mean to be contentious. We all have 
> different perspectives as to what VOIP should be. My goal is to 
> replace analog lines, not supplement them. I'm talking residential 
> installations. I don't think I can ask these folks to leave their fax 
> on an anolog line? I think that if we start deciding things for the 
> Customer, then VOIP will be seen as an elitist toy for digitally 
> inclined, instead of an acceptable alternative for the masses.
> No offense to the anti-fax coalition.
> Jeff
>