VOIP service

[jnelsoninjax]

So I have the Obihai OBi200 with Google Voice and it works great. Now my buddy needs something like that, but the box is no longer sold and the used/new on eBay are $200+, for reference I paid less than $50, but it has been a few years. I think what he wants it for is to be able to send faxes, not so much to have it as an active ringing phone. What can I suggest he look into? I know about MagicJack, but it appears to be $90 for the box and 12 months of service, whereas GoogleVoice does not charge anything.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

If the use is just for fax, I would strongly recommend looking into an e-fax solution, and not an analog terminal adapter (ATA) device or other kind of POTS (analog) to VoIP gateway or bridge.  The reason for this is two-fold: 

• VoIP call appearances (aka "phone lines") perform lossy audio compression, which means there is some loss of data in the audio signal.  To get around this, the fax has to renegotiate at slower and slower speeds so that the compression does not affect the integrity of the signal.
   
• The other issue is echo cancellation.  Differences in electrical impedance and acoustic feedback occur when different telephone networks connect to each other, leading to near-end or far-end echo (or both) on calls.  In order to get around this, VoIP phone systems implement echo cancellation technologies that examine the audio waveform for signs of echo in it and cancel (remove) that signal.  The problem is that this degrades the audio and can also cause jitter and latency on the call.  For voice communications it is usually not noticeable (under 50-55ms, which is the limit of what most people can perceive), but it does interfere with data communications used by faxes and modems.

Now, neither if these is technically insurmountable:

• For the first problem, there is a standard for sending faxes over VoIP lines called T.38.  Implementing (or enabling) T.38 on the VoIP call appearance (line) will allow it to transmit fixes.  However, the problem is that like many standards, there are variations in how it is implemented, which means it won't work reliably or consistently unless you are managing the connection from end-to-end and have complete control over the equipment being used and how it is configured.
  
  In some businesses, that is the case because they lease their datacom lines between locations and own/operate the equipment at both ends.  But in that case, it might be easier to just send email, unless fax is needed for regulatory or compliance reasons.
   
• As for echo cancellation, the way to deal with it affecting the fax transmission is to simply disable it.  That will allow some fax calls to complete, but for other fax calls the echo on the line will be too great for the fax to transmit successfully, and the transmission will error out.

So, the best thing to do is to look into online e-fax solutions.  An e-fax solution is basically a fax to email gateway that allows faxes to be received as email attachments, and allows things like PDF, Word documents, text files, etc. to be sent as emailed attachments and received by the recipients' fax machines.  If a person needs dedicated fax service and doesn't want to use an analog phone line, this is probably the best solution.

It has been over fifteen years since I worked at a VoIP hardware manufacturer, so I suspect technologies may have improved slightly, but e-fax services seem to have largely taken over the role of analog fax in business because they are more reliable and less expensive to operate.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

[+Elі Subscriber²]

I have used Ooma ( www.ooma.com) for over a decade I think. It's truly a fantastic service for the price. It's actually free, and you only pay for your monthly taxes required by your local government for 911 etc etc. However, If you want Caller ID and other premium features, then of course there's an extra price for that. I believe Faxes work with Ooma, but you may always contact them to be sure.

Their service is super stable, in all these years, I honestly don't ever remember it being down. Here's their home service page: https://www.ooma.com/home-phone-service/buy/

I recently also discovered Voiply, but I have never used their service, and I'm not sure how good it is. 

 

Ooma Fax Docs: https://support.ooma.com/home/faxing-with-ooma/