Fax Solutions (FoIP)

Virtutone has brought the fax back to the future by developing the only true solution to keeping the fax machine in the office while taking advantage of the lower price of IP lines. A vital part of most business, almost every office in the world has a fax machine used every day. Virtutone provides the technology for businesses to keep their fax machine and have a complete IP solution in their office, saving them money and keeping the office running efficiently.

The Fax Terminal Adapter (FTA) has a RJ45 Ethernet connection that connects to your internet and 1 or more RJ11 jacks which connect to any fax machine. The user sends a fax normally, as the FTA emulates the fax machine on the other end of the line. The FTA receives the fax and stores it in memory. Once the fax has been received by the FTA, it converts it to a Digital format and sends it over the internet connection to the Virtutone servers. Our servers then convert the fax back to its original format and send it out over regular phone lines to the receiving fax machine. Once the fax has been sent successfully, a confirmation is sent back to the FTA, which then sends a confirmation to the sending fax machine. The same procedure happens in reverse when sending a fax to a remote FTA.

Ask yourself these questions about your customer interactions.

• Are you tired of trying to sell your customers on the benefits of moving away from using the fax machine and into using a scanner, with little success?
• Are your customers still insistent that they cannot get rid of the fax machine because all the companies they do business with use the fax for orders and reporting?
• Are they upset with you because you have all the answers to their VoIP questions but you still can’t get their overpriced fax line to work over IP?
• Are your customers frustrated and tired of being taken advantage of by the Telco that seems not to care about them or their business?
• Are the IT managers you talk to frustrated with fighting to get rid of the office fax machines and that they can’t manage it on their Ethernet Network?

Why not give their existing fax machine an IP address and let them keep it!

We offer a solution that is simple and 100% reliable. All you do is provide your customer with a SatFax FTA that they can plug their existing fax machine into. Then they plug the FTA into the nearest standard computer network port (which it can still share with the adjacent computer). Then they send and receive faxes just like they always have and you get to run the system over the IP network.

Use the technology they are comfortable with to take advantage of the options available from the IP technology of today.

How it Works

The SatFax FTA provides a store and forward fax service that captures the fax image at the remote or at the central office before it is sent over IP. When the remote unit is transmitting a fax, it emulates the dial tone of the land line and communicates with the local fax machine using standard T.30 fax communication protocols. As the communication is all done at the remote unit, the latency and jitter associated with the Internet connection are no longer a factor, ensuring the communication to the attached fax machine is successful every time.

Once the fax is received, the remote converts the fax into a data file and sends it using a encrypted file transfer across the IP connection to the SatFax Gateway. The SatFax Gateway determines where the fax is to be routed and transmits the fax either over the SatFax network or the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) depending on whether the destination is internal or external to the network. Once transmitted, the fax is stored in archives if the remote user subscribes to our Fax Backup service or is purged if they do not. The system will also send the remote unit a confirmation page to the remote fax machine if the user has requested a comfirmation page be sent for each transmitted fax.

If the transmission is not successful to a PSTN destination, the SatFax Gateway will retry the transmission to the PSTN fax machine over a 20-30 minute period. If the fax is unable to be received at that time, the remote fax will be sent a "transmission unsuccessful" confirmation page if the user has requested a confirmation page to be sent for each transmitted fax. If the fax is destined for another SatFax unit, the fax will be held in queue for the remote unit to grab on its next communication to the server.

On incoming faxes, the SatFax Gateway handles the receiving of the fax from the PSTN or the remote SatFax device. Once the fax is received, the SatFax Gateway queues the fax image for the remote to grab on its next transmission. The remote unit polls the SatFax Gateway every 5 minutes to see if there are faxes in the queue waiting for the remote. If a fax is waiting in queue, the remote will grab the image file, ring the phone line on the port attached to the fax machine and transmit the fax to the fax machine attached to the remote unit using standard T.30 fax communication protocols. The SatFax gateway will send the confirmation page to the PSTN or the remote SatFax unit that sent the fax if the user has requested that confirmation pages be sent on incoming faxes. If the port attached to the fax machine is busy, the remote will retry the fax over a 20-30 minute period. If the fax is not able to be sent to the remote fax machine, the PSTN or remote SatFax user will be sent a "transmission unsuccessful" confirmation page if the user has requested.

As this is a store and forward faxing solution, there is a delay between the sending of the fax from the remote and the reception of the fax at the destination. Typically, this delay is less than 5 minutes from the time the image is received at the remote or received at the SatFax Gateway. However, Internet connection conditions as well as network congestion may cause the delay to be longer than 5 minutes in rare circumstances. All SatFax FTA units are optimized for 14,400 baud communication with Error Correction enabled. If the fax machine is only capable of a lower baud rate, the adapter will automatically adapt to accommodate the speed of the remote fax machine.

Note: Error Correction is mandatory for communication over 7200 baud.