Transcript EG-2 - TMCnet

IP Fax
Trends & Deployment
James Rafferty
Sr. Product Manager, IP Telephony
[email protected]
IP Fax – Trends & Deployment
• Introduction
• Trends in IP Fax
– Standards Choices
– Why IP Fax?
• Deploying IP Fax Today
• Back to the Future
• Summary
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Introduction
• Fax over IP is not new, but market demand is
growing
• There has been tremendous growth in IP based
communications, such as email and IM
• However, fax lives on
– In the base of 100 million fax machines
– On LAN fax and production fax servers in the enterprise
– Even in 2004, the fax install base is still growing!
• As Enterprises move voice to IP networks
– Fax will follow
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Trends in IP Fax
• IP fax was standardized in the late 90s
– T.38 - Real time fax from the ITU-T
– T.37 and RFC 2301-2306 from the IETF
• Fax attachments via email
• However, implementation lagged the standards
by several years (as usual)
• IP Call Control standards for fax took 2-3 years
more
– H.323:1999-2001
– SIP: 2000-2001
• Fax manufacturers added T.37 fax option
– but its been much less popular than V.34 fax for the
PSTN
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IP Fax Redux
• Drivers for adoption of IP fax
– Convergence of enterprise voice and data networks
– Migration to the IP PBX
– Fax servers still play an important role in document
communications (esp. paper based)
• Legal, health, financial, real estate, ...
• Reach internal and external fax users
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Maturity of IP Fax standards
Internal phone cost savings
Elimination of monthly PSTN line charges
Securing the company’s communications
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Deploying Fax Today
• Why Fax in 2004?
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Capture paper and communicate it (outbound fax)
Fax broadcasts
Fax as part of business process workflows
Legality of fax documents
Annotate paper documents and re-fax
Regulatory Requirements
• HIPPA - privacy of personal health information
• SEC - track and archive all client communications
• Sarbanes-Oxley: track communication between public
companies and auditors
– Unified communications
• fax -> email ->print...
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Fax --> IP Fax
• IP Fax is finally (almost) ready for prime time
• Why?
– Voice over IP projects are dragging IP fax along
• Convert the voice network to IP
• Move the other phone based applications (like fax) to IP too
– T.38 provides “real time” fax over IP
• Install base of T.38 capable gateways and routers emerging
• Uses same IP call control as Voip (H.323->SIP)
• Ties very well into emerging VOIP infrastructure (unlike
T.37)
– Fax hardware and software vendors are starting to IP
enable their solutions
• This will result in a new category of Internet Aware Fax
Servers
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IP Fax Model with Gateways
T.30
T.30
Lan
Fax
Server
T.38
Voip/T.38
GW
Local
Area
Network
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IP
PBX
w/
PSTN
trunks
PSTN
T.30
IP Fax Endpoints and Gateways
T.30
T.38
IP Lan
Fax
Server
IP
PBX
w/
GW
Local
Area
Network
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PSTN
T.30
Checklist for Early Adopters
• Keep working with your best fax application vendors
– Don’t re-engineer the business process and software
architecture unless you must
– This may be the time to standardize around a single corporate
fax solution (for PSTN and IP fax needs)
• Ask about interoperability
– How well does the IP fax solution connect with traditional
Group 3 fax machines?
– Lan fax <--> T.38 <---> fax machines
– IP call control (H.323, SIP, both?)
• Is your network ready?
– Must be able to handle fax and VOIP traffic
• Review all uses of fax and decide on best migration path
– Fax machines on analog lines
– Fax servers (Outbound/Inbound)
– Integration of incoming fax to email servers
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Other IP Fax Tips
• IP Fax boards will generally scale better than host based
IP fax (offloads work from host)
• A Voip-ready network should also be OK for fax
– IP fax runs pretty well unless delays of 1+ sec or lost packet
bursts
• Test with your oldest fax machines
– if they don’t connect well, best to replace them
• Use small gateways to connect T.30 fax machines over IP
to the corporate WAN or move to T.38 capable fax
machines
• IP fax gateways only run as fast as the slowest PSTN
connection
• Carrier Considerations
– Will all fax calls be converted to T.30 for external
connections?
– Does carrier offer native VOIP or VOIP/T.38 support from the
IP-PBX?
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Back to the Future
• Watch for IP enabling of the most popular fax
server applications in late 2004-2005
– via IP fax boards
– via host based software (later)
• SIP comes on very strong as the preferred IP
fax call control
– H.323 becomes the legacy install base for T.38
installations
• Internet aware fax will emerge on servers and
fax machines (talks directly to IP network)
• Slow evolution to support V.34 fax via T.38
– standards just approved in 2003
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IP Fax Summary
• Fax over IP is coming soon to many enterprises
• Many drivers, but big one is the move to IP
PBXs
– Convert voice and fax traffic to IP
• T.38 provides real time IP fax communication
and will be widely supported by the LAN fax
vendor community and VOIP gateways
• SIP is rapidly overtaking H.323 as the IP Call
Control protocol of choice for T.38 IP fax
• Critical to retain very good interoperability with
the existing base of Group 3 fax machines and
servers
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Q&A
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