Fax is killing me
Posted by docphilgames@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 56 comments
Vonage customer and I gotta say fax machines are killing me. I’ve got a situation where fax to some numbers work and others don’t. I have to be able to fax from a physical machine and have a Grandstream ATA on the fax machine. Vonage says it’s not their problem. Printer/MFA company says it’s not theirs. What would you do?
PlsChgMe@reddit
Vonage is VOIP. Fax over VOIP is hit and miss. Look up westfax and use them. It's not very much, it's HIPAA compliant, and it just works. I think it starts at like $15 a month, depending on how much volumen you do.
Nonaveragemonkey@reddit
Reality = it's all basically fax over voip. Pots is long dead.
thewunderbar@reddit
I'd first check what year it is
maxlan@reddit
I think this is an American question.
The rest of the world stopped using fax when they stopped using inches and feet and fahrenheit and learnt which way round the date should be written.
Stryker1-1@reddit
Fax is still rampant here in the Healthcare industry here.
HadrienDoesExist@reddit
France still uses fax in some industries because it holds legal value, unlike email. It's slowly starting to change, mostly because of the COVID pandemic and EU e-invoicing regulation.
ForgottenGrocery@reddit
Or probably working in Japan or for Japanese company. My friend works in Tokyo and he still has a fax number on his business card.
halodude423@reddit
Or healthcare.
encrypttwice04@reddit
but healthcare is the worts for this, they’re still using fax because “regulations” while your data gets sent in cleartext.
Fallingdamage@reddit
Yeah. I guess they assume as long as there isnt a homeless person in the bushes with a lineman's box clipped to the copper and a laptop with a serial connection, the data is probably safe. The old 'security through obscurity' thing.
I mean, someone is always listening. Im convinced that a lot of the AI tools that generate voice always generate voice that sounds about as clear as a cell phone call because they're quietly using billions of hours of voip conversations to train it.
thewunderbar@reddit
No, the voice thing is because there is basically an unlimited source of people talking into microphones on the internet.
halodude423@reddit
100%
Icy_Performer_9675@reddit
maybe
docphilgames@reddit (OP)
Believe me I’d love to get rid of fax but healthcare, government, and other verticals use fax all the time.
Pub1ius@reddit
Why does it have to be a physical machine though? There are compliant efax services out there. We use SFax by Scrypt.
VexingRaven@reddit
Just because they are weird and want to receive fax doesn't mean you have to send it by physically running paper through a fax machine. Set up an account with a fax data service and document how to use it, then tell anyone who complains to pound sand.
MenuPsychological853@reddit
And it people get to listen to them bitch constantly that their faxes don’t work over voip. I’m pretty much over it at this point.
CeC-P@reddit
I don't see a reason to now fax to email and email to fax these days.
JohnGypsy@reddit
Switch your service for that ATA to t38fax.com. Seriously, I'm just a customer, and this solved our voip faxing issues for clients that still need a physical fax machine as long as you have decent internet. (For crap internet, you need a store-and-send device instead.)
yensid7@reddit
Yeah, so much easier!
docphilgames@reddit (OP)
Will look into this
Zilvreen@reddit
Is using Vonage's e-fax inbox not an option? When I talked to them about getting off the aging Zultys system I inherited, it looked super easy and more or less like the e-fax my current system has, just without the janky printer driver for sending faxes that I currently deal with
docphilgames@reddit (OP)
I wish. But this is a situation where the folks running the fax do not want to even see the faxes being sent. Think of it as a secretary on the office is just trying to help people punch in the fax number but doesn’t want to see what sensitive data they may send. Which I get.
VexingRaven@reddit
Why does the secretary have to be involved? Whoever is sending it can use e-fax themselves. Or the secretary can just send the file to e-fax without opening it I guess which is basically the equivalent of what's happening now.
El_Gigamono@reddit
But what will the secretary do all day if she isn't sending faxes?
jfarre20@reddit
I gave up and went for faxstation by sangoma, faxes terminate on the box and are ALWAYS succesful, even if you dial the wrong number (eventually a few mins later you get faxed back a failure), but it NEVER fails at the machine which has ended all fax issue calls. Some datacenter with actual analog lines does the real faxing, now whenever there is a problem its the recipient - not us.
InsaneGuyReggie@reddit
The compression in VOIP causes problems for modems. It might not be Vonage’s problem in that your connection is going through a provider using data compression. It affects lower bitrates less. It could be what’s happening
docphilgames@reddit (OP)
Good info! I’ll give this a test
InsaneGuyReggie@reddit
You might have to try like 300 BAUD or less, if possible.
gehzumteufel@reddit
I would be getting both of them on the same call then. Because that's garbage.
docphilgames@reddit (OP)
Yeah we’ve tried this but alas it was 3 hours of unfruitful testing. Good suggestion though as that’s what I normally do when being the man in the middle.
PlsChgMe@reddit
OP FWIW I've walked this path and burned hours troubleshooting, talking to receiving FAX owners, and ISP's. You will NEVER get an analog FAX machine to work every time over VOIP. There are too many variables out of your control and the people with control of those variables (the ISP's and the receiving FAX machine owners) either don't want to, can't or refuse to cooperate.
gehzumteufel@reddit
wtf wow. That blows. I am sorry.
OBPH@reddit
what is the failure? Is this FoIP or POTS?
crashorbit@reddit
You are using traditional fax functionality that dial a telephone number and use Group 3 signaling? That's always going to be problematic over a VOIP service.
One way to make Group 3 signaling over VOIP more reliable is to deliberately use a slower speed. Another is to check if your multifunction printer can use a FAX over IP service.
Fallingdamage@reddit
and ask your telephone company to remove compression from the line. Sometimes you have to be persistent.
docphilgames@reddit (OP)
I’ll definitely give that a check. I’m relying on the print vendor here to know their stuff but I should do some due diligence myself to check. We’ve definitely had this working before shortly after the cutover which was about 3 weeks ago so I’m inclined to say it should work.
crashorbit@reddit
The devil is the details. If it was working right over cutover, what is different now? Has your list of destinations grown? Do destinations that worked after cutover still work now? Do attempts fail to connect? Do they fail in the middle?
It might be worth taking an experimental approach to this. Keeping notes and working out if there is a pattern.
KrisBoutilier@reddit
Agreed.
Vonage says that they don't support fax, period. So no T.38 support, which only leaves trying to force exclusive use of G.711 ulaw (or alaw) codec on the ATA and potentially lowering the baud rate so the network jitter doesn't keep messing things up.
Fallingdamage@reddit
When you say some numbers dont work. Can you describe why they dont work? Posting on r/sysadmin so I assume you're an IT person. Your description of the problem is kindof vague. Will need details if you want help.
ProgressBartender@reddit
When will the 70’s finally die?
mrsocal12@reddit
Buy into an eFax type service. All you'll need is a document scanner to send PDFs to your email & then you can either upload them to a portal or send them from your email account.
I've used them on / off since the early 2000's at a mortgage company. Doctors offices would benefit as well, they are HIPAA compliant.
pdp10@reddit
Debug the problem and figure out for yourself what's at fault.
Rich-Parfait-6439@reddit
I had a similar issue. Are some of those numbers toll-free (800, 888)? If so, the problem likely is the compression alot of the toll-free carriers use. I could fax a normal number all day long, but toll-free was a no-go 80% of the time. Your best option is to ask if they have a non-toll-free number for that fax line if that is the issue.
gonewild9676@reddit
Ether Fax used to sell an analog phone line to Ethernet adapter. They charge per page but it's reliable.
Conlaeb@reddit
Forget t38, find an eFax service with a https based ATA.
countsachot@reddit
E fax or keep a pots line for fax.
Curious201@reddit
fax over voip is one of those things that can work for months and then waste a whole day with no clean owner, because every side can honestly say “not our problem.” if you still have to support it, i would simplify the test path first: one known-good fax machine, one known-good analog adapter, one number, no mfp complexity, and test inbound/outbound with ecm off and the speed forced down to 9600 or 14400. also check whether the failed numbers are all on the same carrier or destination type, because partial failures are often routing/interconnect issues rather than your local printer. long term i would push hard for an e-fax service or a dedicated fax ata/provider, because troubleshooting physical fax through a general voip stack is a terrible use of anyone’s time.
TigerMostFear96@reddit
I've definitely encountered this same problem recently, but it can be solved with a special smartphone app.
geryatric@reddit
I genuinely didn’t know fax still existed. Is it just business to business or do people have fax machines at home in your country?
ExceptionEX@reddit
don't use voip for fax, I'd either go all digital and use a service, or get copper lines from your local provider.
F7xWr@reddit
documo
psychopompadour@reddit
Our company uses an e-fax service called "faxmaker" or something like that (there are multiple services of this type), because our hundreds of locations are (almost) all converted to VOIP, but our industry is full of non-tech-savvy vendors and small business customers who still use fax to send contracts and other things...
As far as i know, it works really well! Your users send an email with a pdf attachment to [faxnumber]@[faxconverter.com], and it magically turns the pdf into a fax to that number. You can also set up receiving, where a fax sent to one of our internal numbers will be converted into a pdf and emailed to the assigned user. It's really convenient and you don't have to maintain extra stupid land lines to your physical locations (if you have only one office maybe that's not so bad, but when you have lots, it sucks... the network ops guys at our company hate dealing with a bunch of different local telcos on top of local ISPs).
BoringLime@reddit
Faxing over voip.is a huge pain. First thing is control what you can control on your fax machine. If you can't do t38 faxing, which typically requires special speeds(like 9600bps or 14,400bps) and ecm turn on, on your fax machine. If not, then you have to set your fax machine to the slowest setting and turn off ecm. Sometimes fax speed is hidden behind terms like super-g3 33.6k bps or g3 14.4k bps. But ideally with just voip fax with no t38 support, 4800bps is probably ideal. T38 really is a life saver with sip faxing but your telco has to support it. Also this t38 protocol doesn't have any bearing on the other fax machine. It just connects you properly to your telco, from there, it's there problem to get it to the other person/company.
I am not sure if I explained it well, turning off super g3 is also typically a requirement. If it tries to auto negotiate, it will probably try a speed that is just too fast. The issue you are seeing is probably this auto negotiation. Your ata device is having to convert all the fax whistles to digital and transmit it. These conversations mess up the timing of the whistles just enough that it breaks. Also the faster fax speeds, they just can't keep up. Good luck.
minektur@reddit
There are a few companies that can provide you with good ATA setups and t38-compatible faxing trunks. Against the rules of the sub to name them except in certain threads... but if you search for grandstream ATA t38 sip trunk fax or some similar combination you'll get some options.
ElectroSpore@reddit
We almost completely eliminated fax during covid however have a few goverment edge cases that still require it.