Do you use a Vonage phone?

Question

Do you have a fax machine attached to it? Is the fax working?

I have a fax machine attached to a Vonage line. I can send a fax, but can not receive one. I called Vonage. They said the I should try a separate line for fax. Then it MIGHT work. That will be another $10 a month. I think the result would be the same.

What do you think?

Answer 1

I didn't like Vonage, so I use Time-Warner as a bundle with TV, Internet and phone and have no problems with my fax.

Answer 2

Sounds like a problem with the fax machine conection, not the line, if you got another line you would have the same problem. Vonage is a bad company and their Tech Support is awful, they dont really know what they are talking about

Answer 3

Faxing over VoIP lines is touch-n-go.... no guarantees, generally speaking.

For Faxing directly over VoIP, there are a couple guidelines that must be met to be successful (if possible).

1.  You must be using a high bandwidth Codec on your VoIP service.  This would be the equivalent to G.711u (or PCMU) codec.  With Vonage service, they just use laymans terms like High, Medium, Low, bandwidth settings.  So, with Vonage your account definitely needs to be set for highest bandwidth.

Any other Codec that compresses the VoIP signal will not pass Fax signals without corrupting the data.

Having the fastet Internet speed you can afford will probably help, but not guarantee success.

2.  There is a new data protocol called T.38 that is specifically designed to process Fax over data lines.

Generally this means the VoIP ATA you are using requires implementation of T.38 protocol, and your service provider must support T.38 protocol service.  Currently, not to many VoIP VSP's that I am aware of actually promote usage of the T.38 protocol.  However, many of the VoIP ATA's (like Linksys adapters) are implementing T.38 into newer equipment.

3.  Implementation of QOS (Quality of Service) on your local network will increase greater success.  QOS will give Fax data to your ATA (analog telephone adapter) highest priority over other data on you network (like web, email, file downloads, etc.).

Some home network routers have QOS implementation built-in.  But unfortunately, explaning how to configure your system NAT-Router is beyond what can be covered here, and generally requires technical abilities beyond most home users.

4.  Using the lowest data speeds possible on your Fax machine may improve success, too.