Using VoIP for Faxing

by Wirehead

Rightardia recently bought a Brother MFC7840W. It got good reviews from a variety of Internet technical sites such as PC Magazine. It is an ideal multi-purpose laser printer, fax and scanner for a small office/home office (SOHO). We thought we would miss color printing, but the 23 ppm speed left our old Canon color printer in the dust.

Rightardia upgraded to Bright House Lightning from Verizon FIOS. We are saving about $100 per month and also noticed a network speed increase which we have documented in another article: http://rightardia.blogspot.com/2010/02/bright-house-lightening-and-verizon.html

However, we started having trouble with our new VoIP lines shortly after the changeover. Our voice line worked intermittently and would often drop dial tine. Sometimes we could only make outgoing calls, but not receive incoming calls. Bright House fixed the problem today when the technicians noticed the Category 5 cable that provided voice and data services was nicked.

Finally the phone lines worked perfectly. However, when we tried to fax, there was no dial tone. We called Bright House and asked them about problems with VoIP over Bright House Lightning. They assured us that the fax line should work. Previously we had used one single PSTN or plain old telephone systems (POTS) line with distinctive ring. This allowed the fax machine to listen for a specific ring tone over a single PSTN line before it would pick up an incoming fax.

Most phone companies do not offer PSTN unless they were an old Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) like Verizon. All the new DSL and and broadband service providers only offer VoIP service that runs over the broadband line to the Internet. VoIP is not quite as reliable as PSTN and if your business or home loses power, you also lose your phone service unless you have an Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS).

Of interest, Brother indicates that its fax machines are designed to support PSTN and it does not guarantee that they will work over a VoIP line:


All fax-capable Brother machines (Intellifax and Multi-Function Centers) are designed to operate on a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). This is the historically common analog telephone system. Currently, another type of telephone service is becoming common - Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). VoIP is frequently referred to as a Digital or Internet Phone.

The main difference between the two is that a PSTN connection is a direct, dedicated link between the two calling stations while VoIP divides the call up into data "packets" and transmits them over the Internet. For consistent, reliable service Brother recommends the use of a PSTN line. While Brother products are capable of functioning over a VoIP system, the unregulated nature of the Internet may cause situations that result in unsatisfactory performance.

After making a variety of configuration changes on the fax machine with no success, we thought it might be worthwhile to reboot the router. After the router rebooted, Rightardia was both able to transmit and receive faxes. If you have a Brother fax machine like the 7840W, we suggest you try these fax options after rebooting the Bright House router:

compatibility: Basic for VoIP--this  drops the fax speed to 9600 bps and disables error correction.

distinctive ring: make sure this feature is disabled because it only works on PSTN lines

receive mode: fax only will assure that the fax machine receives faxes without user intervention.

dial tone: Use no detection also called blind dialling.  The Brother fax wouldn't even dial until dial tone detection was disabled.

ring delay: set to 4 rings

F/T ring time: use 40 seconds

You can send a test fax to Brother at 1-877-268-9575. You can also use Fax Zero to send a test fax to you fax machine. You have to verify that you have a working email address before you can use fax zero.

If you want to test your VoIP service, check out this web site: http://www.myconnectiontest.net/voiptest/index.html

source: http://www.brother-usa.com/support/voip/default.aspx

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