I'm setting up a small office PBX on asterisk, and I've got to the point where I have to decide on what to do about FAX. The current situation is: PRI (E1) connected to an E100 and sip hard phones on their own network. I'd like to add some very limited fax capability to the system. Basically we need to send a couple of faxes a month, and receive about the same number. My options include; 1) get a basic fax machine and plug it into a (iaxy/sipura?) ATA. Configure the ATA to do alaw so asterisk doesn't have to do any transcoding and hope it works. 2) use spandsp on my asterisk system and add suitable print queues 3) get an separate analog line and plug a fax into it 4) use a fax modem on the back of an existing system and an ATA (like 1 but even less hardware) 5) use a fax-to-email service I've been reading about all the problems that people have with fax. What do folk recommend? Tim.
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, tim panton wrote:> I'm setting up a small office PBX on asterisk, and I've got to the point > where I have to decide on > what to do about FAX. > > The current situation is: PRI (E1) connected to an E100 and sip hard phones > on their own network. > > I'd like to add some very limited fax capability to the system. Basically we > need to send a couple > of faxes a month, and receive about the same number. > > My options include; > 1) get a basic fax machine and plug it into a (iaxy/sipura?) ATA. > Configure the ATA to do alaw > so asterisk doesn't have to do any transcoding and hope it works. > 2) use spandsp on my asterisk system and add suitable print queues > 3) get an separate analog line and plug a fax into it > 4) use a fax modem on the back of an existing system and an ATA > (like > 1 but even less > hardware) > 5) use a fax-to-email service > > I've been reading about all the problems that people have with fax. > What do folk recommend? > > Tim.I have the same question / issue, and am thinking to use a dedicated fax server for it. I would like to try using ISDN BRI cards in the faxserver and put a Quad BRI card in the * server where the Quad BRI will work in NT mode. I am hoping that this would be a more solid / stable solution than messing around with the analogue stuff and ATA's etc.
On 2005.01.19 01:39 tim panton wrote:> My options include; > 1) get a basic fax machine and plug it into a (iaxy/sipura?) > ATA. Configure the ATA to do alaw > so asterisk doesn't have to do any transcoding and hope it works. > 2) use spandsp on my asterisk system and add suitable print > queues > 3) get an separate analog line and plug a fax into it > 4) use a fax modem on the back of an existing system and an ATA > (like 1 but even less > hardware) > 5) use a fax-to-email service > > I've been reading about all the problems that people have with fax. > What do folk recommend?Get a separate analog line and plug a fax into it. It's an unfortunate expenditure, but Asterisk just does not do fax very well. There seems to be some bug with it and receiving faxes. Andrew's experience seems to indicate that you could mix numbers 1 & 2 with success. In other words, send with #1, and receive with #2. I don't have any experience with #2. My experience with #1 is that sending works fine, but receiving is not fine. Lee.
> On 2005.01.19 01:39 tim panton wrote: > >> My options include; >> 1) get a basic fax machine and plug it into a (iaxy/sipura?) >> ATA. Configure the ATA to do alaw >> so asterisk doesn't have to do any transcoding and hope it works. >> 2) use spandsp on my asterisk system and add suitable print >> queues >> 3) get an separate analog line and plug a fax into it >> 4) use a fax modem on the back of an existing system and an ATA >> (like 1 but even less >> hardware) >> 5) use a fax-to-email service >> >> I've been reading about all the problems that people have with fax. >> What do folk recommend? > > Get a separate analog line and plug a fax into it. > > It's an unfortunate expenditure, but Asterisk just does not do fax very > well. There seems to be some bug with it and receiving faxes. > > Andrew's experience seems to indicate that you could mix numbers 1 & 2 > with success. In other words, send with #1, and receive with #2. I > don't have any experience with #2. My experience with #1 is that > sending works fine, but receiving is not fine.We have a PRI and I run both incoming and outgoing faxes through a TDM400P. It works without problems. No need to mess with codecs/compression at all. The signal that comes in on the PRI is the same one that goes out to the fax machine and vice versa. The fax machine is a big ricoh multifunction unit.