TMCnews Featured Article

Some companies, when they achieve a successful niche in a market, are content to sit on their laurels. Others, though, seek to continue developing new features, to push their products to new heights, and to invest time, money and resources to research and develop new methods of achieving efficiency and innovation. When it comes to the IP fax space, one company that has managed to carve out a unique position in the market is Sagemcom, and it has not rested on its laurels, as it plans to release a new version of its popular XMediusFAX server.

Version 7 of XMediusFAX from Sagemcom boasts many new and exciting features, and many of these innovations come from the company’s dedication to research, listening to customer feedback, and finding ways to incorporate the best technology in new and efficient ways. For example, the company has made a concerted effort to embrace SIP trunking technology and seamlessly integrate it into the latest release.

Since the late 1990s, SIP trunking technology has become increasingly popular with enterprises that seek to lower costs and improve quality of communications. It has become the dominant form of communication, and the T.38 transport protocol has come to characterize the IP fax transport world. To meet the demands of this technology, and to fulfill the expectations of the SIP Forum (News - Alert) Fax-over-IP working task group, Sagemcom has sought to work closely with SIP trunk providers to create XMediusFAX. The solution is designed to work in an IP world, to enable scalability and security.

While most solutions on the market rely on third party technology, using fax software coupled with dialogic fax boards, Sagemcom offers a vertically integrated model. This unique vertical integration allows for higher channel capacity, simple operations and tech support, improved responsiveness and complete “futures” control.

And now, in Release 7 of the product, Sagemcom has gone even further in optimizing for SIP trunking. The company has reached out to the biggest players in the SIP trunking market to work on interoperability and certification. The technology has been tested with AT&T and Orange, among others, and is certified with Global Crossing and Telstra (News - Alert). But, perhaps most importantly, Sagemcom has developed a unique relationship with Quebec-based SIP trunking provider babyTEL.

In Release 7, babyTEL has been included as a SIP trunk provider in the dropdown menu, giving IT managers a quick and easy way to initiate a handshake sequence with the provider. The software takes care of registration and other matters and can have the relationship fully up and running in a matter of minutes. This simple SIP onboarding is unique in the industry and the direct integration of babyTEL will help simplify the experience for overworked IT departments.

There are other SIP features in Release 7 as well. For one thing, there is SIP registration support, which enables bindings between registered public addresses and the private address of the fax server. This will allow users to have an easier and more consolidated approach to configuring SIP parameters. Another feature is the SIP outbound proxy as intermediate between XMediusFAX and a SIP Peer in order to enable SIP transactions with the Peer when the latter is protected behind a firewall. This allows for a simple way to configure the properties of a specific SIP Peer chosen from a Peer List.

Many of these innovations come from Sagemcom’s formalized and interoperability and certification program, which has led to many other features of Release 7 which are dynamic and useful. The official release of the updates is coming later this summer and, in the fall, the company plans to release a fax service platform as well. It’s an exciting time for the company and the start of a new era for IP fax!