The Commetrex Outlook | March 2013

A Vulcan Mind Meld?

Well, we’re giving it a shot.

As is so often the case in software projects, FaxTap for SIP has been 99% complete for the last month, but we finally reached 100% (at least for the alpha) last week. We are pretty confident in it, so we are hopeful we’ll finally launch the beta by the end of the month, and anyone using it will receive an unanticipated benefit.

As you may know, Commetrex has relentlessly focused on fax technology for 20 years, and have been responsible for several innovations, such as terminating T.38, multi-modal terminating fax, the T.38 Interoperability Test Lab, and, most recently, the patent-pending Smart FoIP. The remarkable thing is that, for the most part, these technologies were developed by our two most-senior developers: Cliff Schornak, CTO and co-founder; and Bruce Adams, Principal Engineer and Director, Signal Processing Technologies. This means that we have two guys that have been here since the creation, and there may be nothing about fax that they don’t know between the two of them.

So?

So, they can analyze a Wireshark FoIP capture in a heartbeat. If we could clone them and put them on the staff of every ITSP and carrier, FoIP “issues” would be gone overnight. But since our cloning efforts failed, we decided on FaxTap for SIP, which is our attempt to do a Vulcan mind meld between Cliff, Bruce, and the FaxTap for SIP software, giving the industry a huge boost along the way towards making FoIP work.

Trying to make FoIP work? Give us a call at 770-449-7775 and ask us about FaxTap for SIP and our other products in our make-FoIP-work lineup.

Does FoIP Work In SIP Networks?

Contrary to what many will try to tell you, it absolutely works provided it’s handled correctly by the service provider and carriers. In recent testing between a service provider’s VoIP network and Commetrex, our testing partner sent us 1,000 perfect 3-page faxes, 10 at a time. There was no ISUP (traditional carrier) routing involved. The route was the service provider’s IP network, through his border element, to the Internet, and then to our service provider’s IP network. The calls were delivered to BladeWare with SIP trunking. Our server issued a T.38 re-Invite, which was accepted by the testing partner’s BladeWare server.

The other direction had a few percent errors, and we are currently chasing down the reason, but there is some asymmetry: When Commetrex places the call through our service provider using SIP trunking (rather than over the open Internet), the called BladeWare/endpoint issues a T.38 re-Invite, but our server never sees it. However, the called/receiving BladeWare gets its re-Invite accepted…by our provider. So the call is G.711 from us to a transcoding entity (SBC?) in our provider’s network and T.38 from our provider to our testing partner’s server. Interesting.

One observer opined that our service provider had probably configured his SBC or gateway to force the transcoding we are seeing by setting “T.38_to_G.711 for faxRelay on the egress trunk”.

Once you have ATAs and servers with our Smart FoIP, you’re on your way to “making FoIP work.” Sometimes, that’s all you need to do, but often you need to do some testing to determine the best routes for your FoIP calls. That’s where our amazing support comes into play.

If you want to make FoIP work, just give us a call at 770-449-7775, and press 1.

ITEXPO Miami 2013 … It’s Not Just The Weather

In addition to the great weather, fantastic food, and interesting people-watching on Lincoln Road Mall, we once again had a highly-successful show in Miami Beach. We were focusing on two key products: Smart ATA and our new FaxTap for SIP.

We lost count of how many ITSP employees came into our booth expressing their frustration with FoIP. And the stories were always the same: “We can’t get multiple-page faxes to go through,” and “We tell our customers to keep POTS lines for faxing.” Once we explained how Smart FoIP works and that it’s available today in Smart ATA, we started getting orders in before the show closed!

Our newest product, FaxTap for SIP, is a FoIP analysis tool. We like to say that it picks up where WireShark leaves off because it provides much more detailed information and extracts the fax image. If you have troubles with FoIP, FaxTap for SIP will help you determine just what the problem is.

If you’d like more info on either Smart ATA or FaxTap for SIP (or any other product), send us an email. And stay tuned for details on our next show, ITEXPO Las Vegas in August.

Become A NetGen Reseller And Make The World A Better Place

If you’ve been reading our newsletter for a while, then you know how excited we are about Smart ATA — and Smart FoIP, the technology behind it. We’re completely confident that Smart ATA will change the FoIP market. We’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback on the product, but we need help getting it out to a wider audience. That’s where the NetGen Reseller Program comes in.

We’re in the process of putting this program together and we welcome your input. We’re offering tiered volume discounts to qualified resellers who want to carry the Smart ATA product. Not only is Smart ATA the best analog telephone adapter on the market, it also solves — for the first time — real-world problems that nearly every ITSP and company has. By offering Smart ATA as a solution to their customers, NetGen resellers will truly help them overcome an ongoing problem (unreliable outbound FoIP calls) and free them from their dependence on POTS for fax — and make good margins in the process.

If you’re interested in the NetGen Reseller program, send us an email or call 770-449-7704.

Have You Noticed The NetGen Website?

If you’ve been to the NetGen Communications website recently, then you’ve noticed some changes. We’ve redesigned the site to be more appealing and easier to navigate. We’re expanding the content now, so be sure to visit the site to keep up with the new information, including details on the upcoming NetGen Reseller program.

We welcome your suggestions of how to make the site better, so shoot us an email.