Fax over IP (FoIP)

FoIP (Fax over Internet Protocol) is a new technology that allows faxes to be sent over an IP network rather than the traditional PSTN network thus reducing the cost per document sent. With FoIP the user experience remains largely the same, if transmitting IP fax to another IP fax users then you can still input a phone number however it is just an alias for the IP address of the IP fax server. Zetafax works in conjunction with the Zetafax FoIP Connector to achieve this and comes in two options the Zetafax FoIP Connector Standard and the Zetafax FoIP Connector SR140.

Features of Software IP faxing

Fax Background

When sending a fax message the “caller” and “called” fax machines have to communicate and understand each other, the way they do this is by using the T.30 protocol, much like 2 people talk having a conversation in the same language.

Standard Faxing Diagram

 
The T.30 protocol is made up of 5 different phases which fall into 2 categories; call control and image transfer. The call control handles various different factors of the call control, such as what speed to transmit at, whether to use error correction etc. The image transfer handles the transfer of document which has been converted into a TIFF image.
T.30 relies on a permanent connection between the 2 devices to ensure the fax is transmitted correctly. If the connection is lost or delayed for a long period of time (above 6 seconds) the fax fails. The network that connects the 2 devices is known as the PSTN network – the telephone network.

The Future

As more and more businesses migrate to VoIP solutions, the infrastructure that once catered for faxing is no longer available, as VoIP doesn’t require a separate legacy network (PSTN) to carry analogue traffic.
VoIP solutions make use of networks that are already in place - computer networks. These networks operate differently from telephone networks, they do not create permanent connections between devices to communicate, instead they transmit packets that could take any path to find its destination.
With this new challenge, faxing had to find a way to send faxes over an IP network. This was achieved by implementing a new protocol, which is called T.38.

T.38 allows fax messages to be sent over an IP network, the messages are sent to some sort of gateway (a gateway connects 2 different types of network together – in this case an IP network to a PSTN network).

T.38 diagram

It is important to remember that the T.38 protocol doesn’t replace T.30, it sits on top of it, and makes it compatible for transmission over a computer network. Once the data reaches the gateway, the message is transmitted in the T.30 protocol, which means normal fax machines are still able to communicate to the new IP fax machines/servers.

Zetafax supports both of Eicons implementation of Soft IP (H323 and SIP), and Brooktrout’s TR1034 FoIP enabled fax board, which means that businesses planning to migrate to VoIP, or were cautious of doing so due to faxing compatibility are now able to take advantage of this new technology.

H.323 – IP Telephony

 
H323 was designed by the International Telecommunications Union; it was the first of the 2 technologies.
It is a collection of different standards that make VoIP possible, these include:
 

H.323 Components

Terminals – real time bidirectional multimedia communications (PC or H323 Application)
Gateways – connects 2 different networks i.e. SIP compatible LAN à PSTN
Gatekeepers – Addressing, authorizing & authentication

H323 diagram

Gatekeeper’s Role:

SIP – Session Initiation Protocol (Defined by the Internet Engineers Task Force)

SIP is the newer of the 2 IP telephony technologies; it takes a top down approach for the communication between the 2 end users. SIP creates a session over the IP network and uses SIP commands to setup the call.

SIP Details

  SIP sessions use T.38 protocol to carry fax media - SIP & T.38 FoIP is defined in ITU-T T.38 Anex D

Components

SIP diagram

Registrar’s role

Dynamically build’s a table of registered User Agents

Definitions

Related topics

Installing the Brooktrout SR140

Installing the Brooktrout devices and drivers

Configuring Brooktrout devices for use in Zetafax Server.