[Asterisk-Users] T.38 fax summary

[Lee Howard]

On 2005.02.27 04:26 Rich Adamson wrote:

> Back in the olden days, I recall several modem vendors bundling PC fax
> software with their products. All of those old Win v3.1 apps created
> a fax file (eg, pdf or otherwise) that could be distributed via email.

Well, I don't remember any of them doing PDFs.  PDF wasn't really 
around when Windows 3.1 was in its prime.  And even those fax win-apps 
that were distributed with fax modems as recently as 2001 tended to 
write the fax images in TIFF or some proprietary format.

> What are the equivalent low-overhead approaches (sort of T.37) today?

Any computer fax application that I know of will write the image to 
file, modern ones usually use TIFF.  HylaFAX, mgetty+sendfax, efax, 
spandsp, etc.  Then you just write the glue to make it deliver that fax 
image by e-mail.  HylaFAX already has that built-in, and just requires 
some minor configuration to make it turn on.  I don't know much about 
the delivery systems of the others.

> I'd be very happy if I could simply connect an old analog 28.8 modem
> to the asterisk serial port, and drop a low-overhead app onto the
> system to address the fax stuff for today. Something very basic.

If you're happy to use the hardware and have a PSTN line availble to 
it, you're talking about HylaFAX.  But I suppose that any fax package 
would work, with the exception of spandsp, which would require that you 
use an Asterisk-compatible FXO instead of that modem.

Lee.