[Asterisk-Users] Re: OT: fax obsoleted? Was: Re: Fax via email (Steve Underwood)

[Terry Goodwin]

>>> kurtwp at yahoo.com 6/15/2004 7:29:33 AM >>>
>Old managers will change its the LaLawyershat don't
>change.  Every dam law office that I been in has at
>least one fax machine that is constantly printing
>something out.  But to say fax is dead is an
>understatement.
>AT&T said that about teletype service, you know 50 -
>300 baud service, years ago and then one day they
>noticed that traffic across their teletype
>seservicetarted growing.  
>
>If anyone is going to develop fax fufurtherthey should
>look into T.38.  All the big VoVoIPahardwareendors are
>developing or have developed T.38 on their gateways. 
>A couple examples:  CiCiscond NuNuera- Even this
>little poky cocompanyalled InInnomedias developing it
>for their SIP based ATATAs
>
>Kurt 

I know I responded to your post,  but my comments are not directed at
you specifically.  Yours was just the last post to the thread.


I have been reading the "back and forth" on this and feel compelled to
input something.   I agree that fax  is dying, I just don't know how
long it will take to die.   One reality of being in business is that you
must support and adapt to your customers needs.  In our case we have
many customers who will do business only by fax,  therefore any solution
we look at must support faxing (incoming and outgoing).   We never want
to tell a customer " sorry, its our way or the highway".  Since our
users must deal with this,  it is my job to make their jobs easier by
folding the old technology (fax) into the new (data) so that they can
communicate with ANY customer via their PC.  This is why I ( and I
believe others) are looking for a solution for sending and receiving
faxes via their PC (hylafax using asterisk as a modem bank for example)


One other note on fax.  While I do believe that it is a dying
technology,  it does make for an adequate "backup" to email when your
WAN goes down and your waiting for the telco to get the dang thing
fixed.  Business communication can continue in a degraded state.

A quality system MUST support TODAY's needs and position itself for
future needs. 

Respectfully,

Terry