As companies are increasingly implementing 'all-IP' environments one easily overlooked application is that of the fax machine. Fax technology is still a very important part of the business communications, yet a failure to include the technology within the IP environment can cause higher costs later.
 

In a recent interview, TMCnet's Erin Harrison spoke with Barry Alpart, vice president of sales at Diem Technologies, an Open Text provider, on the benefits of fax over Internet Protocol and why it is important for a company to include FoIP in their infrastructure and network planning.

In examining the benefits of FoIP, there are several good reasons why any company should move to FoIP. The economic benefits include the consolidate of voice and fax to the same infrastructure, which lowers overall cost. Are these hard dollar savings? Customers are telling Diem they are measuring hard dollar savings on the voice side of the network.

These customers are saving money by putting fax and voice calls over the network as they are or mostly free. They can also reduce maintenance cost of the PBX (News - Alert) and margin cost associated with fax on an IP network that will grow over time.

Often, when a company merges voice and data, they forget the fax. They end up having to retro fit or still rely on analog devices. Traditional faxes are slower, which uses more of the phone line and runs higher costs. Retro fitting increases this cost over time if it is not designed for in the beginning, Alpart said.

As for virtualization, the fax servers can be virtualized if the company installs the SR140 software made by Dialogic (News - Alert). This software provides the same functionality and protocol as the fax board, but it is software-based and therefore can be virtualized. This lowers the overall cost of hardware, software and heating and cooling expenses.

 

In addition, the location of IP fax server is independent of the PSTN network access point and the fax server simple needs access to a LAN or WAN. This makes the fax capability remote and disaster recovery is possible. In essence, a single virtual machine can be duplicated in a disaster recovery facility without requiring companies to maintain two completely different location hardware setups.

Compliance and risk reduction are other measurable benefits. Stand alone fax machines and multifunction devices are on the IP network. Network fax server allows people to send and receive from desktop to integrate the MFP into the fax system. Faxes can be automatically routed to a person within the company or to a document management system. FoIP increases compliance by employees who work in remote offices by standardizing the process.

As for recommendations on how to take the step to implement FoIP, Alpart said the best thing for a company to do is contact an experienced solution provider willing to work with planning and implementation.