VoIP Fax

It’s only a matter of time before technology brings to us reliable faxing VoIP codec. As far as VoIP goes, the speed with which it has chiseled through our lives, sweeping us of our feet; it reinstates our faith in it and asserts that Faxing over VoIP technology will soon be a phenomenal hit too!

The basis issues over VoIP faxes are that unlike VoIP, VoIP fax functions on a different codec. While trying to send faxes through VoIP we basically have two different codec’s running, one which supports VoIP and the other which supports the fax. That’s the reason why VoIP service providers include a free additional fax line with special faxing codec’s to allow and propagate the idea of Faxing over VoIP

The reason why faxing has not picked up popularly over the VoIP technology is the basic issue of data loss or damage. Basically how VoIP technology functions is that it coverts analogue signals into digital and transfer them in the shape of small packets over a high speed broadband line.

Now when the fax tone is digitized into packets and transferred from the VoIP server these packets are often lost or damaged. Packets are lost over a VoIP call too, but this loss is still manageable as the voice can still be interpreted and understood but when it happens to the data packets of a fax, the data lost makes for a message that is non comprehendible and can really mess up the fax and result in bad fax , dropped calls or error messages.

However using fax codec, chances of proper delivery of data is greater however chances of failure increase if the number of pages increases from more than 10.

A common practice is to scan the fax copy in to a .PDF file and email it across simultaneously while using VoIP fax.

Such limitations of VoIP faxing have hampered its course of acceptability; however it’s too early to conclude the fate of this technology as it is in its nascent stage.