FoIP Featured Article

FoIP, or Fax over IP, is the process of sending and receiving faxes via a VoIP network – an innovative technology that has become increasingly popular over the past few years.

But is fax still relevant?

According to Joel Maloff, vice president of Channel Development at Phone.com – who presented a session on behalf of Max Schroeder (News - Alert), senior vice president of FaxCore this afternoon at the Ingate SIP Trunking Seminar in Miami – fax is still easy to use in many countries, and meets HIPPA and regulatory requirements.

So how did Fax come about? In 1980, the ITU published the t.30 protocol, which was the protocol that carriers had to hear to in order for a fax to work. Maloff explained that t.38 was an updated version that was created in the early days of Internet usage to create fax over IP.

“From 2008 and until now, we are seeing more of an acceptance that the world is going IP. Companies must be prepared to do it,” said Maloff. “We are increasingly seeing large government entities that are seeing that IP is more efficient form of communications.”

“Most fax products out there are still based on original 1990s client server architecture. Most of them are trying to avoid a total rewrite,” explained Schroeder at ITEXPO (News - Alert) Austin back in October.

FaxCore, on the other hand, completed a total rewrite in order to introduce with FaxCore 2007 – a product that the company received several TMC (News - Alert) awards for. At the end of 2011, FaxCore came out with FaxCore Evolution eV5. “We had done two total rewrites in the last five years, which is the reason we are a step up from other products,” he said.

Today, Faxcore provides a robust set of features, almost all of which are standard, with a base price that is below most competition. Its fax server leverages Web and Internet-based technology to deliver efficient implementations.

The functionality associated with a Fat Client is available to users as well as administrators through a browser UI.  

Built on the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0, the FaxCore (News - Alert) engine delivers fax traffic over physical or virtual enterprise networks of any size, enabling fax for an entire organization, locally or globally. Additionally, since unified communications (UC) is now a requirement for today's converged world, FaxCore also utilizes customer UC deployments by supporting VoIP solutions from companies like Cisco, Avaya, ShoreTel and more.

“We have been a pioneer in the FoIP market with imaging companies like Sharp (News - Alert), Zerox, HP Imaging etc,” said Schroeder. “We have always been trying to lead the way in technology.”

Want to learn more about SIP Trunking and how to integrate it into your current UC strategy? Don’t miss the SIP Trunking- UC Seminars collocated with ITEXPO Miami 2013, happening now in Miami, Florida.