Fax is increasingly being utilized by businesses all over the globe as a way to send time-sensitive and confidential documents to multiple parties. This offering enables users to rest assured that these vital pieces of information will not fall into the wrong hands and will instead be successfully sent the first time around to the intended individual.
Multiple testing sequences are regularly completed in which companies that may have not realized the vitality of implementing fax into their firm can better visualize the associated advantages. In fact, the SIP and i3 Forums power extensive testing of FoIP in carrier networks, and findings clearly highlight that routing a FoIP call over multiple international tandem connections comes with a large amount of challenges.
Commetrex, a major fax provider, stated in a recent newsletter, “This means carriers that want to provide reliable FoIP service today must route FoIP calls over validated FoIP routes (e.g., all-IP routes, preferably with guaranteed QoS). Generally, IP-to-TDM conversions should only be used to reach the TDM fax terminals. For the most part, that means over-the-top IP routes, not handing off the call to the next-in-line least-cost carrier, but giving it to an IP carrier that can deliver it to the TDM incumbent in the destination country.”
Hence, it is crucial that carriers deploy a way for the on-ramp/calling/emitting gateway to signal that the call should be routed over a FoIP-qualified route. Recently, the SIP Forum (News - Alert) FoIP Task Group surveyed IETF RFCs and found that session initiation protocol or more commonly referred to as (SIP) enables callers to select various preferences in regards to handling servers.
“These preferences include the ability to select which Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI) a request gets routed to, and to specify certain request handling directives in proxies and redirect servers. It does so by defining three new request header fields, Accept-Contact, Reject-Contact, and Request- Disposition, which specify the caller's preferences,” the fax provider added.
Commetrex’s (News - Alert) CEO Mike Coffee concluded, “If you are a SIP stakeholder, you should be a SIP Forum member. And if you are responsible for SIP-based products or networks, seriously consider attending next year’s SIPNOC.”
Edited by Rich Steeves