OpenText - Understanding FoIP Fax Solutions

Understanding FoIP Fax Solutions
August Startz, RightFax Sales Engineer
Amy Campos, Product Marketing Manager

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

OpenText ©2013 All Rights Reserved.

2

Key Takeaways
1

Evolution: VoIP to FoIP to UC

2

Understanding FoIP

3

Network Needs and Requirements

4

Benefits of FoIP

5

Fax Servers and FoIP

3


3

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 invention
of 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

4

Evolution of Faxing
 Faxing isn’t about
machines, paper, and
toner anymore

Analog
1980s

Digital
1990s

FoIP
2000s

 UC strategies were
developed and
implemented in
companies to support
VoIP and a system of
globally unified
communications


5

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


6

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


7

UC strategies were born
 Bringing communication together in one location


8

UC strategies must include fax


9

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


10

What is FoIP?
 Understanding FoIP

 What equipment does FoIP require?
 How does FoIP work?
 Integration with a Unified Communication network


11

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


12

FoIP interoperability and equipment
 Cisco

 Aastra

 Avaya

 Mitel

 Verizon

 ShoreTel

 Level 3

 XO Communications

 Alcatel-Lucent

 Siemens

 Dialogic

 CenturyLink

 AudioCodes

 Sonus

 HP

 Telstra

 BabyTel

 Quintum

13

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

 Store and Forward
(T.37)

 Fax Relay: Based on
T.38 protocol

 Not real-time faxing

 Real-time faxing

 Not used much

 Fax is demodulated and
streamed to the other
gateway using a fax
relay protocol

14

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 Passthrough
RTP Packet with PCM Payload
RTP

RTP

T.30 Fax call

RTP

IP

PSTN

15

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

T.38
Data

10110

Data

01100

IP

Data
RTP 10010

PSTN


16

T.30 absolutely matters in Fax over IP

T.38 / T.30

T.30
IP-enabled
Equipment

T.30

PSTN

T.38
Data

10110

Data

01100

Data
RTP 10010

T.30 wrapped in T.38 packets

T.30 analog / digital PSTN

End to end T.30 conversation

T.30 absolutely matters in Fax over IP


17

Headquarters

FoIP
 A fax server solution can
be 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

IP
IP

 Rule of thumb - if VoIP
works between two
locations, then FoIP
should work as well

18

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

H.323/SIP Call Setup
G.711 Voice
T.38 Fax
Fax Server

Voice Gateway


19

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
H.323
SIP
Call Manager

Fax Server

Voice Gateways


20

FoIP Network Considerations
 Quality of Service
 Packet loss
 Delay
 Jitter

 Bandwidth


21

QoS Network Factors
Packet Loss

Jitter

Originating
Gateway

Terminating
Gateway

T.38

T.38

T.38

T.38

T.38

Delay

 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

22

T.38 FoIP and Packet Loss
T.38 Fax Packets
IFP 2
(Secondary)

IFP 3
(Primary)

IFP 1
(Secondary)

IFP 2
(Primary)

Gateway
IFP 1
(Primary)

T.38 Fax Relay With Redundancy Level Set to 1

 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

23

T.38 FoIP and Delay
Multiple IP and PSTN hops are
prime sources of additional delay
PSTN

IP

PSTN

Satellite links
cause large
amounts of delay

IP

 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

24

T.38 FoIP and Jitter
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
8

11

IP

10

Fax

Fax Fax

9

Fax

7

6

5

4

Fax Fax Fax Fax

Evenly spaced
packets are played
out to the DSP for
transmission on
the PSTN

3

2

1

Fax

Fax

Fax

DSP
Codec
(T.38)

300 ms Fixed Playout Buffer

 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

25

QoS Design Parameters for T.38 FoIP
Delay

Jitter

Packet Loss

Fax

< 30 ms
(average,
one-way)

< 1%

< 1000 ms

Voice

< 150 ms
(one-way,
mouth to ear)

< 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.


26

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
1Values

are approximate with Ethernet or
Frame Relay headers

Bandwidth1

Codec
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)
Fax passthrough (G.711)
with redundancy

83 Kbps
170 Kbps

T.38 (no redundancy)

25 Kbps2

T.38 (redundancy level 1)

41 Kbps2

T.38 (redundancy level 2)

57 Kbps2

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


27

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


28

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


29

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 all
UC traffic, including fax
 Rapid deployment
of new fax lines/numbers


30

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


31

Benefits of fax servers

Integrates

Secure

Compliant

Configurable

Enterprise
Grade

32


32

Fax servers – key characteristics
Secure

Compliant

Enterprise Grade

Secure fax transmissions
with on-premises fax
server

Maintain regulatory
compliance such as
HIPAA, PCI, SarBox

Business continuity, high
availability and DR options

Keep faxed document
private and confidential

Private exchange of
information

Supports virtual and
collective environments

“Point-to-point”
transmission

Full audit trail

Supports high volume and
production faxing

Immune to malicious
viruses and malware

Legally recognized proof
of delivery

Centralize a single fax
solution across multinational organizations


33

Fax servers – key characteristics
Configurable

Integrates

Highly configurable and
customizable

Email applications such as
Exchange/Outlook, Lotus
Notes, Office 365

Multiple APIs for custom
integration with business
applications

Applications such as SAP,
Oracle, OpenText eDOCS,
SharePoint

Admin tools designed to
help configure RightFax to
unique settings and rules

Any MFP including pre-built
connectors for HP, KM,
Ricoh and Xerox

Multiple deployment
options to meet any need

Supports UC strategies
with interoperability with UC
vendors


34

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.

35

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.


36

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 ix@opentext.com
 Follow us at @OpenTextIX
 Join us: http://www.opentext.com/community/ix


37

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