Grandstream HT801 Analog Fax Machine

[MammerJammer]

The testing continues.. We have set up a fax server and the inbound faxes are redirected to email perfectly. Our challenge is that some of our customers are married to their fax machines and still want to use it for inbound/outbound faxes.

We would like to configure the HT801 ATA as a FusionPBX extension, create an inbound route with their fax DID and transfer that inbound to the extension/ATA to ring the fax. Similarly, when they send a fax it would send outbound from the HT801 > FusionPBX > recipient.

I've played with the Forward Number and set it to the extension registered to the HT801 and inbound does make it where it needs to go. Is this the best way to do this? Does anyone have any experience to share? I'm sure there are a few horror stories, but I would really prefer to hear some success stories if they are out there.

 

[Kenny Riley]

Sure, you can register your ATA to an extension number on Fusion PBX and point the fax DID to your ATA extension number. The problem in my experience is, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's never consistent. Outbound faxes fail for no rhyme or reason. I gave up on T38 years ago -- it's not reliable in my experience and not worth the headache. Instead, for these scenarios where a customer has to use a physical fax machine, I install an ATA and connect it to a t38fax.com trunk. Sure it costs money, but it works every single time.

 

[Frank]

I have numerous faxes set up with no issues. I use Cisco SPA 112 or SPA 122.

 

[Raymond Burress]

I second the T38fax.com trunk....except how I have mine setup is I have one domain setup that is my fax domain (only fax exts and fax servers on it). Any customer that uses fax has an ext and fax server on that domain. This way the outbound faxing can all go through one T38fax.com trunk instead of needing one for each customer that uses fax.

 

[Kenny Riley]

I second the T38fax.com trunk....except how I have mine setup is I have one domain setup that is my fax domain (only fax exts and fax servers on it). Any customer that uses fax has an ext and fax server on that domain. This way the outbound faxing can all go through one T38fax.com trunk instead of needing one for each customer that uses fax.

Interesting... this way you don't have to pay for multiple trunks.. Why didn't I think of this!? Thank you Raymond, I'm gonna give it a try!

 

[brb5548]

Use t38 on the ata and use freeswitch mod_spandsp as the t38 gateway in fusion.

 

[Raymond Burress]

@Kenny Riley Yeah it is working well for me so far. The individual trunks were just to expensive to use one per customer, especially when most do not use fax very often. So that is why I came up with doing it that way. The only downsides for it that I was able to come up with was that there would be no transfering to that ATA as it is a different domain, but I just use the ATA for fax machine only, so that was not an issue for me. The other downside was that fax to email would all have to come from the same email address/from name because they are all on the same domain, but again this was not a concern for me as I just kept the from email/name generic.....definitely better then paying for a trunk for each customer.

 

[MammerJammer]

Well, here's a follow-up. I'm currently testing outbound faxing with two different SIP carriers and I spent 2-3 hours testing every conceivable permutation of baud rates, error correction, T.38, pass-thru and hopping on one foot while pressing send..

All I can say is that with Carrier A, I was unable to send even 1 fax successfully. As soon as I switched servers and tried Carrier B, fax success was 100%. What's more, I couldn't even break faxing with Carrier B after deliberately trying. I don't want to name names in public chat - my intention isn't to slam any of the carriers, but I am happy to discuss in more detail privately. I'm very impressed with the reliability so far, in spite of all the Fax over VoIP boogie man stories I've heard.

 

[Kenny Riley]

If T38 isn't working with a certain carrier, I don't see any harm in informing the public about it -- if anything, you'll be saving people who stumble across this thread and are using said carrier A alot of headaches.

I would be interested to know who "Carrier B" is if T38 is rock solid for you.

 

[MammerJammer]

If T38 isn't working with a certain carrier, I don't see any harm in informing the public about it

I can appreciate that point of view, but it's not my intention to harm a carrier's reputation that I've had nothing but stellar results with in every aspect except fax. I'd hate to cost them potential SIP business just because someone heard they can't do fax, regardless if they even have an interest in offering fax service.

On the other hand, if anyone interested in fax were to ask privately I have no problem sharing my experience or naming names.