itsp

Just returned from ITEXPO. It was in blazing-hot Austin, TX, which is a very cool town. And it was very cool for Commetrex and NetGen Communications, our sister company, which is producing and marketing Smart ATA, which we announced at the show. It also turned out to be way cool for the ITSPs who stopped at our booth when they learned about Smart ATA, and what it could do for their success with FoIP.

Whenever I hear someone tell me that T.38 isn’t capable of bringing reliable real-time fax to IP-carrier networks, I resist the temptation to roll my eyes. Instead, with missionary zeal, I explain that if T.38 provides reliable fax in enterprise IP networks, and, if real-time fax is problematic in carrier networks, it’s not because there is a problem with T.38, there’s a problem with the way it’s being used ... possibly abused. You might argue that it doesn’t matter why, either it does the job or it doesn’t. Good point. Read on.

T.38 Interop LabI recently shared with you that the industry’s deployment of FoIP is proceeding in phases. Phase I, which extended from the early days of T.38 in the fall of 1998 to just a few years ago, was characterized by the need for interoperability between intra-enterprise network elements, such as between an ATA and a gateway. But those problems are trivial in comparison to what we are dealing with today. Let’s call it Phase II.