SIP and Modems/Faxing

[JaronRH]

The company I work for is looking at upgrading its phone system. However, we're having a hard time getting a good answer to some of our questions so I wanted to see if anyone out there could help us out.

We have a 23-line PRI coming into our building right now that we plan on keeping. We're looking to get a gateway to use as a termination point into a new SIP system. What we're trying to figure out is:
- Can we use an ATA to accept a call from a modem. It doesn't have to be high speed (our current NEC system can only run around 28.8k) but we have a few customers who need to be able to dial in to our system. Essentially, it would be: PRI->Gateway->SIP->ATA->Modem . Is there a modem emulator that can run on a server that talks directly to SIP? (i.e. PRI->Gateway->SIP->Virtual Modem that our software works with)
- Can we use a ATA to send faxes? Fax->ATA->SIP->Gateway->PRI?

The network shouldn't be an issue (low latency, little noise or packet loss). It's all for one small building so no crazy WLAN's or anything like that either. We're just looking to see if the above has been done reliably by anyone else. We're worried that latency in the A/D and D/A conversions could mess things up. T.38 with a third-party isn't an option either (unfortunately).

Extra credit: Does 3CX's incoming faxing support TIF export of incoming faxes instead of PDF? Can it be a file dump instead of email?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

 

[jpillow]

You can use an ATA to do so however I find it best to keep analog devices ie modems, fax, postage machines, on analog lines. As far as receiving fax there is a built fax server that will send fax's as PDF. I hope this helps.

 

[JaronRH]

Thanks for the response jpillow! Anyone else?

 

[einherjar]

We also have a 23 line PRI at one of our locations that uses Patton 4970 for the Gateway. We have 4 separate Analog lines for Fax Machines but also have 3 Linksys 2102 ATA devices for sending faxes and 1 to connect to our Bogen paging system. The ATA device works great for sending faxes but we couldn't get it to receive anything. 3CX is great for receiving though, so that wasn't really an issue for us. The incoming faxes deliver PDF files but I also see TIF's in the log folders. Not sure if there is a way to set it up to deliver TIF instead of PDF. We haven't needed that.

The Patton 4970 has been great with little if any issues.

 

[JaronRH]

Thanks!