[Asterisk-Users] asterisk and fax over ip - concept

[Dawid Mielnik]

I will be using Asterisk to connect remote offices to PSTN - over IP (SIP).
These offices will use fxs gateways such as madiatrix and audiocodes to send
VoIP traffic to Asterisk. Asterisk will in turn push their traffic to PSTN.
The other way round will also work ie. Asterisk will forwards traffic from
PSTN to those gateways (offices).

The problem that I have though is that most companies send and recive
faxes - and so will these. I dont want these offices to bypass faxes
directly to PSTN but would somehow like to workaround fax over ip and
Asterisk.

What came to my mind was to add an fxo gateway (connected to PSTN) beside
Asterisk to break out faxes to PSTN. Such a fxo gateway could communicate
with the fxs gateways at customer premises and could reliably transmit faxes
using t.38. The way I would imagine it is as such. When Asterisk would see a
'call' coming from a specified number (assigned to a sip port of an fxs
gateway) instead of bridging the call directly to PSTN over a zap interface
the 'call' coule be forwarded to the fxo gateway (over sip) that could
reliably handle the 'call' (fax transmission).

Would the t.38 transmission be properly handled by the t.38 supporting end
points whith mediastrem passing through Asterisk ? (dont have much
experience with t.38) Has anyone ever tried anything similar / different /
wierder to try and deal with fax over ip and Asterisk ? Any suggestions and
comments are welcome.

Regards,

Dave