Fax Machines and MFD's are Cloud Bound

For years, the VOIP communications industry has been struggling with the challenges of combining T.38 and a standalone fax machine, or MFD, over the open internet.

The introduction of VOIP telephony has also established fax as a not-so-reliable tool – in fact, problematic for carriers and end users alike – with the challenge centered on current transport protocols. These protocols are reliable enough for a typically forgiving medium such as voice, but throw in the issues of latency, packet loss, and jitter, and fax itself becomes unstable, even worse, unreliable, creating a huge issue within the industry. The solution to this problem has been the nemesis of the industry for years; how to handle FOIP transmissions.

Despite this, hope can be found with FaxSIPit, who, with partners AudioCodes (News - Alert) and Faxback, have made advancements in HTTPS fax transmission that have begun to set new standards towards becoming the new benchmark within the FOIP industry.

When VOIP providers hear fax and cloud in a statement, they usually cringe, as they are all aware of the issues with today’s standard fax protocols. Additionally, when companies decide to do away with their PBX (News - Alert), faxing no longer works unless a parallel, non-integrated system is established with dedicated phone lines for fax machines, which is inefficient, expensive, and overall inconvenient.

What’s been really lacking in the fax machine or MFD industry is a way to connect physical fax machines to the open internet for reliable delivery. Until now, that is.

FaxSIPit and AudioCodes have developed just such an answer by putting together a solution which uses AudioCodes’ Fax ATA with a HTTPS firmware upgrade along with FaxSIPit’s service to build a bridge between the fax machine and a cloud fax server.

This solution proves very advantageous, as it eliminates the need for dedicated, non-integrated fax machines lines, allowing companies to finally go all-IP without losing the benefits of fax. It also allows fax to be truly consolidated through a single account, as well as provides security without packet loss by implementing the HTTPS protocol.

Even better, the exciting use of the reliability and security of HTTPS will allow fax machines to not only function over the open Internet, but also via WiFi (News - Alert), Satellite, and Cellular networks with the same reliability.