Fax issue, VoIp

[Rusty.Harris]

Had a tech call me about a customer, who has had one of our machines on their VoIp system for faxing.
Had the machine for over a year, all of a sudden, they can't send faxes. Claimed their "provider" said nothing
was wrong with the system, it must be your fax.
Tech blows out the fax, puts it to factory, tries sending...fail fail fail.
He spends over an hour with various settings I gave him, still no dice.
I pulled the Fax TX log from the cloud, and it was working up to around June 10. I had the tech ask if they
had anything done around the first part of June. They said their provider changed/added/updated "something".
Heck, in the failure codes, they are all D0, B2, B5 errors and get this, the TX rate had fallen all the way back to
2400bps! Man! I can't remember the last time I saw a TX speed at 2400bps!
Then I asked the tech to have the customer call their provider, ask if anyone was having TX faxing issues.

NOW for the DUH moment.
The customer told the tech....the provider said they were getting all sorts of issues with faxing, AFTER AN UPGRADE.

Gee thanks Gomer for wasting the tech's time!

[mloudy]

Re: Fax issue, VoIp

I am of now help with your issue BUT remember the days when faxing actually worked, like all day every day? The only fax service calls where when the fax line was dead. If you had a clean dial tone you were good to go.

It is hard to get anything done when there are VoIp issues because those techs rarely want to do any troubleshooting if they will listen at all.

[Rusty.Harris]

Re: Fax issue, VoIp

I am of now help with your issue BUT remember the days when faxing actually worked, like all day every day? The only fax service calls where when the fax line was dead. If you had a clean dial tone you were good to go.

It is hard to get anything done when there are VoIp issues because those techs rarely want to do any troubleshooting if they will listen at all.

The only time I really had any fax issues, was with the old thermal print fax machines. After a thunder/lightning storm, if the power blinked
I'd get a call the next day for a dead fax. They were left on 24/7 forever and if the power blinked, the LVPS's being cheap switching regulator
types would blow. I use to keep a couple power supplies in my car stock just in case. In the spring/summer, I could always count on replacing
one or two.

I was VERY lucky when VoIp started to show up. I had an excellent working relationship with the communications head of a hospital I had
in the late 90's-early 2000's where they had over 300 fax machines. (one when we retired it, they had 3, each had over 1,000,000 prints).
When they started migrating to VoIp, I started having fax issues. Went to his office (he was an old MaBell guy) and we spent one afternoon
discussing VoIp and faxing. He showed me what the system was, how it worked, etc, and I showed him what settings my machines
had. By the end of the day, we had figured out how to match the settings on his system ATA devices, and we found settings to make the
fax machines work. Heck, I still use about 80% of those settings today.

[mojorolla]

Re: Fax issue, VoIp

One thing I've noticed as VOIP have replaced POTS lines is to only use the 2-line phone cords on a VOIP system. I have seen customers change ISP and the new provider used a 4-ine cord, no longer can send out, swap with 2 line cord, back to normal. We only stock 2 line cords nowadays.

[Rusty.Harris]

Re: Fax issue, VoIp

One thing I've noticed as VOIP have replaced POTS lines is to only use the 2-line phone cords on a VOIP system. I have seen customers change ISP and the new provider used a 4-ine cord, no longer can send out, swap with 2 line cord, back to normal. We only stock 2 line cords nowadays.

Yep, that's the FIRST thing I look for because when machines are swapped out or replaced, our installer will just use what's already there,
especially if he has to go digging behind someones desk, file cabinet etc.

[J_Arnold]

Re: Fax issue, VoIp

Funny how it is always the copiers fault, Unless you can plug your test set into the wall and produce no dial tone you are left with the burden of proof. Unless you know a few tricks to throw it back at the provider or the phone system techs.
I call it the finger pointing game. I am quite good at it.

[Rusty.Harris]

Re: Fax issue, VoIp

Funny how it is always the copiers fault, Unless you can plug your test set into the wall and produce no dial tone you are left with the burden of proof. Unless you know a few tricks to throw it back at the provider or the phone system techs.
I call it the finger pointing game. I am quite good at it.

One of my favorites is when someone fat fingers the number, and somehow gets the phone put on DND. I'll unplug the phone line, put my
cell on speaker, dial the fax number and when I get the busy signal I show it to the customer and twirl the unplugged wire in their face.
90% of the time they get it right off the bat. The other 9%...it takes a little while before the light goes on, and the other 1% I say
how can it be the machine's fault, if it isn't even connected.

[slimslob]

Re: Fax issue, VoIp

One of my favorites is when someone fat fingers the number, and somehow gets the phone put on DND. I'll unplug the phone line, put my
cell on speaker, dial the fax number and when I get the busy signal I show it to the customer and twirl the unplugged wire in their face.
90% of the time they get it right off the bat. The other 9%...it takes a little while before the light goes on, and the other 1% I say
how can it be the machine's fault, if it isn't even connected.

One thing that can happen is when someone is sending faxes to more than one phone number. If you hook flash before the line disconnects, it will put the destination on hold. When you finally hang up it can place all those destinations om conference. Had a problem with a dictation system years ago where doctors would hook flash between after dictating a report and end up with six recorders in a single conference. Disconnect the first one and they would all hang up.

[slimslob]

Re: Fax issue, VoIp

One thing I've noticed as VOIP have replaced POTS lines is to only use the 2-line phone cords on a VOIP system. I have seen customers change ISP and the new provider used a 4-ine cord, no longer can send out, swap with 2 line cord, back to normal. We only stock 2 line cords nowadays.

In the old days of 1A2 phone systems, the outer 2 leads were for lamp control of the KSU. THe order in which the 2 circuits were released determined whether the line was put on hold or hung up.