Commetrex announces FoIP 'breakthrough'

ATLANTA, USA: Commetrex has applied for a patent on technology the company says may finally make IP-based fax directly connected to IP-carrier networks nearly as reliable as PSTN fax.

The technology, which Commetrex calls "Smart FoIP," applies to servers that support both T.38 and G.711-pass-through fax, gateways, and ATAs to make SIP-based call setup and the ensuing transaction nearly error free.

According to Cliff Schornak, Commetrex' CTO, and one of the listed inventors: "Over a three-month period last year, we worked with Copia International, a user of our BladeWare fax-server platform, in an effort to allow Copia's fax-broadcast customers to take full advantage of the economics of IP telephony. We succeeded, but not before we found that without the technology we developed, the success of our fax calls was well below that of traditional multi-line fax boards and even lower than that of T.38-only servers."

Schornak continued: "We thought that our fax-server platform, BladeWare, with its support for 711 pass-through fax in addition to T.38, would have the highest success rate. But when we disallowed G.711 on the server, the success rate, much to our surprise, actually improved by 10 percent. It wasn't due to the well-known problems of G.711 IP fax.

"The problem was that frequently, by the time the carrier networks issue their SIP re-invite from G.711, which is the initial mode of all network-based IP fax calls, to T.38, the fax session had progressed beyond the point where the switch to T.38 could be made."

With this in mind, Commetrex developed Smart FoIP, which puts intelligence into the decision by the on-ramp (calling) gateway of whether to accept or reject the T.38 re-invite of the off-ramp (receiving) gateway.

Servers with support for T.38 and G.711 pass-through fax and Smart FoIP have call-completion rates on a par with PSTN fax and five-percent better than a server with support for only T.38. Versions of the new technology have been developed for BladeWare and Commetrex' T.38 fax relay licensed technology for semiconductor, gateway, and ATA OEMs.

Steve Hersee, CEO of Copia International, commented: "Now, our customers can enjoy outbound completion rates on a par with multi-line fax boards and well above that of fax servers that only support T.38 and are not equipped with this new technology."