VoIP to save faxing from technological obsolescence

Typewriters, audio cassettes, LP records, VHS, telegram, snail mail…. just some ideas from the top of my head. What’s common to them all? Well, they are either buried in or on the road that leads to the technology graveyard.

Another technology could well have joined them if it was not for VoIP. Yes, VoIP has played savior to faxing, the activity that most office staff approached with as much joy as contemplating a visit to the dentist. The news is that Atlanta-based Intelliverse will allow faxing over IP with its support of the T.38 standard for facsimile transmissions. This should encourage companies that still have to send faxes to consider switching to VoIP and enjoy the accompanying cost benefits.

It is not that faxing over IP has not been done before; the technology has been around for some time but failed to win over businesses because of its unreliability. Even a small bit of interference can lead to dropped packages that result in faulty or failed faxes. With T-38, the fax is sent in real-time but after the information has been stored. According to Intelliverse, the reliability of faxing over the T.38 standard is comparable to faxing over the TDM circuits. Error-free faxing with T.38 is achieved by introducing buffer zones that introduce the missing or delayed packets so that the entire data is transmitted.

Frank Paterno, VP, Marketing, Intelliverse states “The key here is that this standard was designed specifically for faxes so it takes into account the fact that a data connection will never be pure.”

Intelliverse is focusing on developing features for the SMB segment; these include ACD and call queue functionality as well as web-based click-and-call functionality.