Looking For Info - Pro/Con on Fax Server System

The number of incoming fax lines is not really the issue. The issue is going to be the total amount of time all the lines spend sending and receiving faxes.

In order to properly size the inbound pipe, you will need a traffic study on all the numbers. This will help you determine the number of total trunks needed to handle the busy hour(s) on the circuits. Each of the inbound fax lines can be assigned to a DID, so a reduction of 30 to 1 or even more is a good starting point. The number of circuits used for outgoing will be the real key, but again, with a fax server faxes can queue so if you take a real shot in the dark and reduce the trunks to a 23B+D you will probably handle the entire load with capacity left over. Most fax machines don't get a lot of use, 60 minutes of traffic in a month would be a fair average for most office faxes. We have a couple in our shop that send 5 or 10 2 - 3 pagers and receive about 10 or 15 two to 3 pagers over a 10 hour period. That still works out around 8 CCS for the entire business day.

Rodgers Platt

Wats> At work we've been contemplating going to a fasx server, and finally the

Yes, the war-dialers will find it and spam-fax you to death. To prevent (or at least thwart) it:

First of all, if you don't -need- to send/receive faxes after regular business hours, shut it down. Most of the fax spammers troll for fax servers at night.

Secondly, if the fax server software supports it, set the ports to not answer until the 5th ring.

If you can deploy both of the above procedures together, you stand about a

Thanks for that information. I'll probably have little to do with the choices made. I'm happy to find out that a single PRI will probably handle the load. I've received several junk faxes this week on our two machines, mainly pump and dump stock touts. And I've reported them to junkfax.org. Right now most of the fax machines get little use, except for those damn junk faxes. I figure that most machines cost about $20 a month, $15 for the phone line, and the remaining for the cost of the machine and consumables. I'm hoping that when we go to the new server, all the savings in phone line cost, over $2000 a month, will pay for the system quickly. But those damn junk faxes may throw a monkey wrench into the whole plan if they tie up the lines a lot during the day. Scary thought.

prevent

Thank you for that info. I'll have to ask about those things.

\\"Watt

You could certainly save money and improve security by sharing fewer lines and a PRI, but there are some downsides. First, how will you route incoming FAXes from

\\"Watt Sun, the

Each user in a department will get the fax in their Outlook inbox, just like email.

Well, I certainly hope so! Those SOB funk faxers will finally lose all those fax numbers and we'll get a new batch of numbers, most probably in our existing centrex block. But whatever the case, definitely different numbers than the ones we had.

About the only concern that I see is that many users don't have a scanner at their desk, so they may have to get something so that they can input a paper copy. Some departments have a Xerox 'Workcentre' which is a netowrked copier/scanner/fax/printer that's free-standing and as big as a large copier. It's heavy duty enough so that it should do the job, as long as the feeble-legged secretaries don't make a stink about having to walk a few dozen feet down the hall to do the fax. Seriously! Some of the departments have two faxes, just because one of the parties in the department wants to keep their faxes private. Personally, I think that for most departments they're just a big waste of money.

But I digress. Some depts have an 'OfficeJet' or equivalent that can scan and print, etc. It should do the job of scanning if the software for it can be installed. And many of the documents can be originated in Word or other Office software and printed to the fax number. My real concern is if the BOFH fax spammers will tie up the whole PRI with their war dialing and bring everything to a screeching halt. If so, we may have to get another server and lines for another campus and hope that they don't hit both at the same time. :-(

Assuming that the current telephone numbers that you are using are being provided by SBC, you should have no problem getting SBC to cut these existing numbers (which many people also refer to as 1FB circuits) over to a PRI circuit, as long as the PRI circuit is also provided by SBC. If you choose a different provider, you might also be able to get the numbers ported over, but many times the incumbent provider will create a nightmare of problems for you. (They each play hardball with each other They don't love each other very much.)

If all of your current numbers are "behind" a PBX, then there are other issues that you need to address. It might actually be easier and much less expensive to simply tie the fax server directly into the PBX and use the internal routing tables of the PBX to route your faxes.

Once the fax is received, there are quite a few ways to route faxes to the correct person or public folder. Fax server software such as Rightfax, combined with workflow software such as Snapsflow, give you many ways including:

DID/DNIS routing ANI (Caller ID) routing CSID (Fax machine ID) routing OCR routing Bar Code routing Inbound circuit routing Time of day routing Subdirectory routing

There are many ways to configure fax software on a fax server to accomplish what you are requesting. For a system the size you are contemplating, I'd certainly suggest that you contact an expert firm that has quite a bit of experience with both telephony (premise or CLEC) and fax servers. Not being familiar with either, could prolong your project for months.

Hope this helps.

George P> In article , "Watson A.Name - \\"Watt Sun,

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Using Xerox MFD's and smaller scanners are all supported by Snapsflow. Easily. When we configure Rightfax, we set it up to hang up on all junk faxes we encounter. You might also do a little research on the Telecommunications Privacy Act of 1991. This is part of the Telemarketing law that prohibits junk faxes. In essence, you can sue the bee-jeezes out of those folks. (Collecting might be a different story.) It is my understanding that you cannot sue the messenger (ATT Cable & Wireless, etc) but you can sue the person who contracted with the messenger (Orlando Vacations, Stock Tips, Mexican Restuarant) Also, realize that you too, could be guilty of spam faxing, if you do not have an existing relationship with the party to whom you are sending a fax.

Lastly, it is our experience that the folks who do the war dialing will find any new numbers you get. It's just a matter of time. The war dialing does not "send" faxes. It simply decides if your telephone numbers are voice or fax or data modem numbers. They don't tie up your individual trunk lines nearly as much as the service bureaues who broadcast fax the message to you, from the business who bought the database from the war dialer. War dialers tend to tie up about four trunks per minute. The small service bureau times up about eight lines at a time. The really big bureaues can easily time up 96 trunks per minute. Legitimate service bureaus do not do any war dialing, nor do they rent lists. Beware of the bureau that will broadcast for you AND also rent you the list.

Hope this helps.

Or get a small claims judgment. Like you say, collecting is the problem. See

I hear that now the major fax spammers are using that same excuse. We don't furnish the list, the customer does, so therefore we can't be blamed if there is no EBR, our customer is at fault. We're a messenger just like AT&T and other carriers, we just furnish the equipment, so don't blame us. But the FCC has cited these fax spammers for violations, and will likely get a forfeiture judgment against them. Again, it's unlikely they will collect.

Thanks for the info. The now defunct Fax.com war dialed the U. of Washington hospital emergency lines and tied up their lines so emergency calls were blocked. The WA Atty Gen'l sued them and they had to stop sending junk faxes to the whole state of WA. I don't remember if it happened during regular calls or testing for fax lines.