AVATAVA offer three methods of faxing depending on your needs. For comparison, see the chart below.
Fax Solution Comparison Chart
T.38 Fax or FoIP
ITU-T T.38 is the ITU standard for sending and receiving faxes over the Internet "between terminals where, in addition to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or integrated services digital network (ISDN), a portion of the transmission path used between terminals includes an IP network, e.g., the Internet." While T.38works great in theory, in reality, the variables of TCP/IP networks make T.38 unreliable due to packet delay variation, packet loss, and Clock sync issues which to a fax machine may seem like a hang-up and may keep some pages from fully transmitting. VoIP voice calls often work fine in these scenarios, but it can be disastrous for T.38. Long faxes, frequent faxing, or faxing over poor internet connections are likely to cause the fax to fail.
For best results, we recommend setting the fax machine at the lowest baud rate and turn off error correction mode.
T.38 faxing with AVATAVA is supported on a best effort basis only - we only recommend trying this in low usage situations where faxing is not critical to your business operation.
eFax
Fax to E-mail/E-mail to Fax is the most popular faxing option today. Faxes are sent and received via e-mail which is far more common in companies today. no Fax machine is used. Faxes are sent by e-mail with up to three attachments. A Fax received via e-mail arrives in easy to manipulate PDF format. eFax is also TLS encrypted, which adds a layer of encryption not available with T.38 fax or faxing over traditional phone systems.
Directions for sending an outbound fax via our e-mail service can be found here: eFax Sending Instructions Via E-mail
To order eFax service, please open a ticket via the support ticketing system.
HTTPS Store and Forward Fax
HTTPS Store and Forward Fax is our recommended solution for faxing when a fax machine needs to be used on-premise. HTTPS Store and Forward Fax uses a proprietary Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) which accepts the fax from the end user's fax machine locally, encrypts and compresses the fax data, then sends it via TCP/IP to our Data Center to be converted back to dial-tone and transport over the PSTN. Because the fax is transported over the data network via TCP/IP, the fax is not affected by issues that affect T.38 and is reliable even over poor or satellite-based Internet connections. Additionally, the data-center side servers have access to multiple "fax sensitive" carriers, delivery success is higher than any other method of Fax-to-Fax transport. Incoming faxes are sent via the same process in the reverse direction.
For details regarding the HTTPS ATA, please see this article: HTTPS Fax ATA Details
Firewall ATA Fax to Fax Infographic
To order HTTPS fax service, please open a ticket via the support system
For additional questions regarding fax services available with AVATAVA, please contact AVATAVA Support via telephone at (772) 324-3140 or open a support ticket.
