Much Ado About Fax-over-IP
T.38 is a fax relay protocol that was adopted by the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) in 1998. T.38 has become known as Fax-over-IP or FoIP.
Other fax software developers and resellers have attempted to create buzz around FoIP to help extend the life of the software they sell. This has resulted in confusion over what FoIP is, but more importantly what it can really do for your organization. Fax-over-IP is nothing more than the 3rd step in the evolution of how your fax server communicates with your phone system (PBX).
That's all FoIP is. Your organization's PBX or VoIP system still delivers fax calls to and receives fax calls from the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). So if you decide to add FoIP capabilities to your existing fax server software, you will be replacing a fax board and analog or digital phone circuit with third-party software. And you will be integrating your fax server with a VoIP Gateway instead of a phone system.
To further clarify:
- FoIP does not enable you to transmit faxes for free over the Internet. Your organization still incurs costs to transmit faxes to long distance numbers.
- FoIP does not change the features built into the architecture of your fax server software. If your current software lacks key features such as multi-tenancy and "anywhere" fax processing those limitations will still exist after you migrate to FoIP.
Finally, here are 3 additional facts to remember about FoIP.
1. XMediusFAX has supported Fax-over-IP since February 2002. It was the first fax product to
support FoIP and did so almost 5 years before other fax products began supporting it.
2. Sagemcom writes its own T.38 software stack. It does not rely on 3rd-party software to provide
FoIP capability.
3. Deploying FoIP successfully requires more detailed, up-front planning than a deployment
relying on traditional telecom circuits and fax boards. This was also true when companies
migrated their fax servers from analog phone lines to digital telecom circuits.
