opentext - understanding foip fax solutions
DESCRIPTION
Although an essential tool for business communication, faxing is often overlooked when it comes to Voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology. Unfortunately, many business and IT decision makers don’t necessarily understand that fax is not included as part of their new, money-saving VoIP phone systems and are either forced to add a digital faxing solution or, in the worst case scenario, re-introduce an analog phone line for dedicated fax receiving and transmission. However, Fax-over-IP (FoIP) is an integrated and interoperable solution that allows users to transmit faxes over their VoIP networks which can save a lot of time, money, and trouble. • Gain a better understanding of how FoIP works and why it’s such a good way to automate time-intensive manual paper-driven processes • Discover the best ways of using FoIP for integration of the most common business applications and systems while also saving money • Find out how a global enterprise fax solution can accelerate the exchange of information and maximize productivityTRANSCRIPT
Understanding FoIP Fax SolutionsAugust Startz, RightFax Sales Engineer
Amy Campos, Product Marketing Manager
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Presenters
Amy Campos, Product Marketing Manager for RightFax Fax Solutions with OpenText Responsible for helping customers understand how OpenText fax
solutions increase the speed of exchanging information to maximize productivity and cost-savings
August Startz, Sales Engineer OpenText Fax Solutions Expert technical resource working with hosted and on-premises
RightFax servers using FoIP and TDM faxing
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Key Takeaways
3
3 Network Needs and Requirements
Benefits of FoIP4
Understanding FoIP2
Evolution: VoIP to FoIP to UC 1
Fax Servers and FoIP5
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The Evolution of Faxing
The first fax device was invented in 1846 by Alexander Bain The first commercial fax service was between Paris and Lyon,
France in 1865, eleven years before the inventionof the telephone
The first commercial fax machine was launched by Xerox in 1964
Growth in the 70s and 80s, with today over 100 million fax machines in use today
Fax became, and remains today, the common denominator of communication for diverse organizations to exchange information
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Evolution of Faxing
Faxing isn’t about machines, paper, and toner anymore
UC strategies were developed and implemented in companies to support VoIP and a system of globally unified communications
Analog
1980s
Digital
1990s
FoIP
2000s
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Companies transitioned to VoIP
Voice over IP revolutionized telecommunications Cost savings Integration and collaboration with other applications No geographical boundaries Rich features
But voice traffic is not the only way to leverage IP
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Fax over IP was born
VoIP is meant to optimize voice traffic, not fax traffic Poorly designed fax solutions can be difficult to implement in a
VoIP environment Fax machines do not work without additional equipment on a VoIP
network
Fax over IP (FoIP) is sending and receiving faxes by utilizing an IP network
Fax IP FoIP
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UC strategies were born
Bringing communication together in one location
EmailVoice
Multimedia
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UC strategies must include fax
EmailVoice
MultimediaFax
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Do you have any of these challenges?
You have a fleet of standalone fax machines that you want to get rid of
You’ve transitioned to VoIP, but what about fax?
Your UC strategy does not include fax
You need to make faxing more efficient within your organization
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What is FoIP?
Understanding FoIP
What equipment does FoIP require?
How does FoIP work?
Integration with a Unified Communication network
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Understanding FoIP
FoIP uses your IP network to send faxes by leveraging your existing VoIP infrastructure
Eliminates the need for analog phone lines for a fax machine
Integrates with your existing UC equipment (ie Cisco, Avaya, etc)
Send faxes to any faxing device around the world Fax machines Other fax servers
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FoIP interoperability and equipment
Cisco
Avaya
Verizon
Level 3
Alcatel-Lucent
Dialogic
AudioCodes
HP
BabyTel
Aastra
Mitel
ShoreTel
XO Communications
Siemens
CenturyLink
Sonus
Telstra
Quintum
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Leveraging your IP network to send fax traffic
Fax Passthrough
Real-time protocol
Fax passed using G.711 codec
Same as a G.711 voice call
Fax Relay: Based on T.38 protocol
Real-time faxing
Fax is demodulated and streamed to the other gateway using a fax relay protocol
Store and Forward (T.37)
Not real-time faxing
Not used much
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G.711
Modulated data information is sampled and encoded as standard PCM (i.e. G.711) and encapsulated in RTP for transport over IP just like a voice codec does for human speech
From the gateway perspective, this is more or less a G.711 voice call
FoIP call using PassthroughRTP Packet with PCM Payload
RTP RTP RTPT.30 Fax call
IP PSTN
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T.38
T.38 is the industry standard for FoIP faxes
T.38 is not a real-time protocol, but converts fax traffic into data packets for real-time fax transmission
T.30 Fax call
IP PSTN
RTP10110
T.38
Data 01100Data 10010Data
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T.30 absolutely matters in Fax over IP
T.30 analog / digital PSTN
End to end T.30 conversation
T.30 absolutely matters in Fax over IP
T.30 T.30 T.38 / T.30
T.30 wrapped in T.38 packets
PSTNIP-enabled Equipment
RTP10110
T.38
Data 01100Data 10010Data
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FoIP
A fax server solution canbe easily deployed on top of an existing VoIP infrastructure
The T.38 fax traffic can use the same QoS prioritization policies designed for VoIP to ensure error-free faxes
Rule of thumb - if VoIP works between two locations, then FoIP should work as well
IP
Headquarters
IP
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FoIP and Gateways
T.38 is not a call control protocol
We still have to use SIP or H.323 for call control
T.38 will have to be enabled on the gateway
G.711 is used during the first second of the call
High compression codecs such as G.729 do not support faxing
Voice Gateway
H.323/SIP Call Setup
G.711 Voice
T.38 Fax
Fax Server
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Integration with Unified Communication network
Call manager handles all call routing and call control signaling to the voice gateways when a fax server is directly connected
For example, a fax server connected via H.323 to a call manager can communicate with H.323, SIP, or MGCP to voice gateways via T.38 FoIP
Voice Gateways
H.323
T.38 Fax
Call Manager
H.323
SIP
MG
CP
T.38 Fax
T.38 Fax
SIP
Fax Server
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FoIP Network Considerations
Quality of Service Packet loss Delay Jitter
Bandwidth
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QoS Network Factors
Delay or latency: the amount of time it takes a packet to travel from source to destination
Packet loss: the amount of packets that are unsuccessful in arriving at the destination
Jitter: the measure of the variability over time of the latency across a network
Terminating Gateway
Originating Gateway
T.38T.38 T.38T.38T.38
Delay
Packet Loss Jitter
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T.38 FoIP and Packet Loss
Fax over IP (FoIP) is generally more affected by packet loss than VoIP
Ideally no packet loss should occur for a fax call
T.38 has an optional redundancy feature that allows for multiple levels of redundancy to be configured to deal with varying amounts of packet loss
Each level of T.38 redundancy requires more bandwidth
T.38 Fax Relay With Redundancy Level Set to 1
Gateway
IFP 2(Primary)
IFP 1(Secondary)
IFP 3(Primary)
IFP 2(Secondary)
IFP 1(Primary)
T.38 Fax Packets
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T.38 FoIP and Delay
Delay is not as impacting to FoIP compared to VoIP
FoIP calls have been known to handle network delays of 1 second or more
However, as a best practice it is still recommended to minimize network delays as much as reasonably possible because too much delay will cause FoIP calls to fail
Watch out for multiple IP and PSTN hops and satellite links
PSTNIP
IP
Multiple IP and PSTN hops areprime sources of additional delay
Satellite linkscause largeamounts of delay
PSTN
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T.38 FoIP and Jitter
All gateways support a playout buffer that can be adjusted depending on the needs
With large playout buffers, FoIP can handle larger amounts of jitter than VoIP but as a best practice it is still recommended to keep jitter to a minimum
IP
Variably spaced T.38 packets arrive at the playout buffer and some may even be out of sequence
Packets are re-sequenced if necessary and placed in the required order for playout
Evenly spaced packets are played out to the DSP for transmission on the PSTN
300 ms Fixed Playout Buffer
11
Fax
8
Fax
10
Fax
9
Fax
7
Fax
6
Fax
5
Fax
4
Fax
3
Fax
2
Fax
1
Fax
DSPCodec(T.38)
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QoS Design Parameters for T.38 FoIP
Delay Jitter Packet Loss
Voice
< 150 ms (one-way, mouth to ear)
< 30 ms (average, one-way)
< 1%
Fax
< 1000 ms < 300 ms for fax relay, < 30 ms for passthrough
None*, unless using T.38 with redundancy
*Fax passthrough is very sensitive to packet loss and may be able to handle 0.1%–0.2% loss depending on when in the fax transaction the loss occurs and if it is consecutive packets. Cisco fax relay can handle more loss than passthrough but T.38 with redundancy is still the best choice for fax calls when packet loss is occurring.
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FoIP Bandwidth Utilization
Different FoIP transports use varying amounts of bandwidth
On links where saving bandwidth is a priority then relay is a better choice
T.38 redundancy handles packet loss much better than fax passthrough/ passthrough with redundancy
Codec Bandwidth1
G.711 (64 Kbps) 83 Kbps
G.729 (8 Kbps) 27 Kbps
G.723 (6.3 Kbps) 19 Kbps
Fax passthrough/pass-through (G.711) 83 Kbps
Fax passthrough (G.711) with redundancy 170 Kbps
T.38 (no redundancy) 25 Kbps2
T.38 (redundancy level 1) 41 Kbps2
T.38 (redundancy level 2) 57 Kbps2
1Values are approximate with Ethernet or Frame Relay headers
2Values are peak and only occur during the sending of a page at 14.4 Kbps; gateways can force lower fax speeds for additional bandwidth savings
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Things to remember about FoIP
Moving from analog/TDM faxing to FoIP is possible and you can leverage your current UC environment
FoIP will use gateways (hardware), SIP and H.323 (call control protocols) and G.711, T.30 and T.38 (transmission protocols) to send faxes to any fax machine
Every network is different so make sure to leverage a FoIP provider with a large and trusted interop network
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When does FoIP make sense?
You’ve transitioned to VoIP, but you are still using TDM or analog faxing
You have a fleet of standalone fax machines that you want to get rid of
Your UC strategy does not include fax
You need to make faxing more efficient within your organization
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Benefits of FoIP and UC
Cost savings over traditional faxing
Unified Communications network which includes faxing
Ease of disaster recovery and high availability for faxing
Centralized reporting of allUC traffic, including fax
Rapid deployment of new fax lines/numbers
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Using a fax server with FoIP
What is a fax server? Software installed on a server or servers that allows users,
applications and devices to send and receive faxes electronically
Unified, centralized system for all faxing within an organization
Ways to send and receive faxes: Desktop application Web application Email MFP devices Any backend application
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Benefits of fax servers
Secure
Compliant
Enterprise Grade
Configurable
Integrates
32
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Fax servers – key characteristics
Secure
Secure fax transmissions with on-premises fax
server
Keep faxed document private and confidential
“Point-to-point” transmission
Immune to malicious viruses and malware
Compliant
Maintain regulatory compliance such as HIPAA, PCI, SarBox
Private exchange of information
Full audit trail
Legally recognized proof of delivery
Enterprise Grade
Business continuity, high availability and DR options
Supports virtual and collective environments
Supports high volume and production faxing
Centralize a single fax solution across multi-national organizations
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Fax servers – key characteristics
Configurable
Highly configurable and customizable
Multiple APIs for custom integration with business
applications
Admin tools designed to help configure RightFax to unique settings and rules
Multiple deployment options to meet any need
Integrates
Email applications such as Exchange/Outlook, Lotus
Notes, Office 365
Applications such as SAP, Oracle, OpenText eDOCS,
SharePoint
Any MFP including pre-built connectors for HP, KM,
Ricoh and Xerox
Supports UC strategies with interoperability with UC
vendors
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OpenText RightFax Fax Server
RightFax provides a comprehensive fax solution perfect for enterprises to integrate fax with
virtually any industry application to increase the speed of
exchanging information to maximize productivity and
cost-savings.
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OpenText Corporation
OpenText is the global leader in Enterprise Information Management to empower organizations to maximize the value of information and make better business decisions
OpenText is also: #1 provider of enterprise fax services #1 provider of on-premises fax servers #1 FoIP supplier #1 Production fax server supplier
The #1 provider of Information Exchange solutions.
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Learn more about OpenText Fax Solutions
Visit us at faxsolutions.opentext.com Call us at 800.304.2727 or 1.425.455.6000 Email us at [email protected] Follow us at @OpenTextIX Join us: http://www.opentext.com/community/ix