Integrated fax services?

[fnielsen2]

have a requirement to build an AVVID solution, with Unity, that includes integrated fax services. That's the easy part. The part I'm not sure about is how to accomodate the following requirement: the customer wants each user to only use one DID # allocation, both for fax and voice. The idea being that incoming fax calls to the single number are automatically routed to the fax service, and voice calls are routed to the user's phone and/or voicemail as applicable.

I have seen some integrated solutions that provide for this (non-Cisco) but they usually require the phone to be answered and some sort of prompt to be playing in order for the fax detection to occur. In this case it is desirable to have the voice calls route to phones and ring, without any prompting beforehand. Is this possible? Within a Cisco AVVID solution?

[msolak]

Hi,

I havent got any experiences about fax detecting but I think the following link is helfull for you.

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios122/122newft/122t/122t8/pull2snf.htm

regards

Mehmet

[mysterx]

The standard way to do this is to use 2 DID's. One for the phone, one for the faxmail.

Other methods of fax detection are possible, but they usually require that the fax sender select from a menu or send extra digits somehow, which is simply not how people send faxes in this day and age.

To detect a transmitting fax machine, you have to answer the call and listen for the CNG tones. However, there is no real way to auto-detect a voice caller, so there would likely be an annoying delay (possibly resulting in hang-ups) for voice callers. In my opinion, it is better to use 2 DID's to make the system easier to manage and troubleshoot, and to me it just seems more professional to have a dedicated fax number.

Scott Morgan

Cisco Systems TAC

[fnielsen2]

Agreed, and this is how I would normally position it. This customer seems concerned about the cost of additional DID numbers in other countries. Apparently they become very expensive depending on the locale. ?