Inbound fax and T.38

What is Inbound Fax?

You can add Inbound fax facilities to many of our numbers.
Once this is activated, the number can only be used for receiving fax transmissions and will do so 24/7.

When a fax is received, the usual setup will mean that (for each number separately, if you so desire) set a mail address the forward a received fax to.
Our system will then receive the fax, convert it to a standard pdf file and mail it to the set mail address.

What is T.38?

T.38 is the main protocol that is needed on any VoIP platform to 'understand' a fax coming in and know what to do with it.

Wikipedia on T.38

Is this supported at Voyced?

Yes, our Hosted IPPBX supports T.38 natively and fully.
This can be as processing the fax on our systems or as pass-through so that your fax machine (physical or digital) can receive it.

If you have a fax on your side you should be able to use our lines to send faxes too.

Is it supported for all numbers?

Many will support it but some may not.
It depends a bit on the country the local operator, the type of number you need, etc etc.

If you need a number as a fax number, reach out to our sales or support teams and they'll be able to let you know if the number(s) you need will or won't support it.

What do I need to be aware of?

Ok, this is a biggy really.

1) When you want to connect a fax machine (a physical one) you can do so using an ATA as most fax machines do not talk 'VoIP'.
This is not too complex to do but may very well need a little bit of 'tinkering' to get it working as well as possible.

Don't forget, the fax standards are many and many manufacturers implemented their own spin on them as well.

We can supply various ATA options.

Wikipedia on ATAs

2) Internationally, the support for fax transmissions on VoIP networks isn't always a 100%* and there is nothing we can do about that.
As Fax transmissions are not a part of the VoIP standard, some have not implemented it at all or maybe 'their' version of it.

It is likely to work but can be challenging. Just be aware.

 

The reason why is that it could be whether a problem in the fax machines calling each other or in the networks the fax is going through.
Fax transmissions are very sensitive to the network and this could be the reason for those failures, especially when doing international faxing.
The timings are much more exposed, and if the link is not running as good as the fax protocol expects, there can be errors in the transmission.

Last updated: 01/01/2024

 

 


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All information provided is copyrighted and purely informative in nature. It is maintained by Voyced with the greatest of care using reliable sources only.
Given the fast evolution of the telecom sector, Voyced does not offer any guarantee about the accuracy and completeness of the information offered. 
We explicitly do not give anyone permission to use this information in any other way than to inform themselves about what (legal) requirements there may be and they need to comply with when registering Services and/or DIDs with Voyced.

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