The Commetrex Outlook | May 2013

FaxTap for SIP Introductory Offer

FoIP can be a resource drain if you don’t have expert help. You know fax is finicky in the best of circumstances, but throw in an IP transport and PSTN-like reliability can be elusive. So, what to do? With Commetrex here to help, you don’t have to tell your subscribers to “Keep your POTS for fax.”

Good tools will help, and with our new FaxTap for SIP all-software FoIP-analysis tool, they don’t have to be budget busters. Of course, Wireshark is free, and it lets you know what happened with the SIP session, but it doesn’t do a very good job with actual T.30 (the end-to-end fax protocol) analysis, often giving you misleading results. (Yep, it lies.) But Commetrex is here to help you make FoIP work in your network with FaxTap for SIP, which picks up where Wireshark leaves off.

FaxTap for SIP will find the FoIP calls in a PCAP (a Wireshark capture file), give you the SIP ladder for each, a comprehensive T.30 protocol analysis, and render the image, even if it’s a V.34 transaction. You will flat know what happened … for both T.38 V0-4 and G.711 pass-through calls.

Now, if there is a problem, we’re afraid FaxTap can’t tell you what to do to fix it. (Sorry, A.I. is for future releases.) For now, that’s where Commetrex’ amazing support comes in. And for a limited time, we’ll throw in two months of support at no additional charge. But wait! There’s more! If you have a call where we can’t tell you what went wrong, we’ll even throw in another free month.

FaxTap for SIP is $4,250 per seat with two hours of support. 12-month Platinum support extensions are $4,950, but order and pay for FaxTap by June 30 and we’ll give you those first two months, absolutely free. Make us put up or shut up.

We make FoIP work!

FaxTap for SIP

Interested? Fill in this form and you’re on your way to FoIP freedom.

You Are A Carrier Or ITSP…

And you’re trying to make FoIP work. Well, there is no silver bullet, so it will usually take some work to track down the problems, assuming you have some. Here’s the typical problem path:

Terminal >> ATA/gateway >> SBC >> routing function >>
SBC-SBC >>carrier(s) >>gateway >>PSTN

Now, your problem(s) are somewhere along that path. Don’t try this at home, instead, call Commetrex. If you can get us the network architecture, the carriers involved, and the requested captures, we will tell you what the problems are.

So, put us to the test.

For more information, visit our website and fill out a contact form.

We’re Taking Our Act To Vegas!

We’ve scheduled a limited engagement in Las Vegas: exhibiting at ITEXPO in August! The show dates are August 27-29, and if you haven’t made plans to go yet, you should.

We’ll be in booth 327 promoting Smart ATA and FaxTap for SIP. If you’re a service provider and you want to give your subscribers a FoIP solution that actually works, you should come by the booth and talk with us. Or if you run a business and you want to implement a cost-effective FoIP solution so that you can eliminate your POTS lines, then the same applies to you.

Whatever your FoIP troubles are, we can help. We hope to see you there! In the meantime, feel free to give us a call at 770-449-7775 or send us an email.

Jump On RFC 6913

Speaking of making FoIP work, if you haven’t checked out RFC 6913 and you are an equipment vendor with FoIP support (or if you’re involved in routing calls that might be FoIP), you should check it out. RFC 6913 has the potential to take FoIP to the point where subscribers are unaware of the differences between PSTN and FoIP.

Commetrex is enhancing its BladeWare product to support RFC 6913, and NetGen Communications will be doing the same with its Smart ATA®.

From section 8 of the document:

This document is a result of the unique cooperation between the SIP Forum and the i3 Forum, which embarked on a groundbreaking international test program for FoIP to improve the interoperability and reliability of fax communications over IP networks, especially tandem networks. The authors would like to acknowledge the effort and dedication of all the members of the Fax-over-IP (FoIP) Task Group in the SIP Forum and the communications carriers of the I3 Forum who contributed to this global effort.

Perhaps you should consider adding it to your product or routing algorithms. Feel free to contact us for more info at 770-449-7775 or send us an email.

SIPNOC 2013

SIPNOC is an annual conference sponsored by the SIP Forum. This year it was held at the Hyatt Dulles, just outside Washington, DC, the fourth week of April. We just noticed that the conference presentations have been posted on the SIP Forum’s website. There are many excellent presentations, but here are links to two that we found to be particularly interesting:

SIPNOC 2013 Tutorial: An Introduction to WebRTC presented by Steve Mckinnon, GENBAND

“This presentation will cover the various technologies that combine to make up the webRTC real-time communications browser capability set…”

SIPNOC 2013 Keynote Address by Henning Schulzrinne

“As CTO of the FCC, Schulzrinne guides the organization’s work on technology and engineering issues.” This presentation is titled: Transitioning the PSTN to IP.

For more on SIPNOC, visit www.sipforum.org.

Enjoy!