SPA2102-EU wont send or retrieve faxes

[bero]

Hi!

I have a SPA2102 from Cisco Linksys, and i cant get it to work for my fax machine, it wont send or recieve faxes and when i try to call it from an external phone i get an answer, high pitch beep for about a half second and then it hangs up, i am pretty sure that the beep is comming from the fax but its not the fax that hangs up. - I have one ricoh CL7000 fax, and one OKI FAX (not sure of model), and one of them has an analog line, i have tried to connect the SPA2102 to both of the faxes bot neither of them will work.

I have ran out of options and answers to what might be the problem, i have configured the SPA2102 to the SPA3102 guide that 3CX has on this site (http: //www.3cx.com/sip-phones/linksys-spa-3102-fax/ No longer available. New link: http://www.3cx.com/sip-phones/).

Therefor im wondering if theres anybody in here that have had the same problem or might have a soulution for the problem i described, even a hint of what it might be is perfectly fine!

Thanks!

Kindest regards
Fredrik Moe

 

[voipoint]

Hi,

I got the same problem with fax. I configured spa3102 with the instruction from 3CX and nothing happens.

Somebody any idea?

 

[bero]

I have ordered a SPA3102 to see if there is any other configuration that might be missing from the 2102.. (as far as i can see there is none, but I never know ).

Please if there is anyone out there with a soulution or a comment on what it might be, please post an answer here

- Fredrik

 

[KerryG]

Unfortunately, the solution I am going to give you is stick to your analog lines for faxing. Faxing is a technology developed 40+ years ago and has not advanced virtually at all with the exception of the very poorly implemented t.38 that still probably has a few years to go before its really a standard. The moment you start pushing faxes through your phone system the reliability and success rate will drop regardless of what you do. That may not be the answer you want, but it is most certainly a fact today.

 

[bero]

No thats not the answer i want at all!

Anyways - i followed this guide: http://blog.2talk.co.nz/spa2102.html , to configure my SPA2102 and it works!!!!.. kinda..

I have been trying to send faxes from my SIP/3CX line to an analog line here in my office, and it wont work at all.. - They connect together but there is no handshake as far as I can see.

BUT... when i send faxes from my SIP/3CX line to another SIP/3CX line it works like a charm (speed is 14.4k).
I wonder if anybody has had any trouble like this before, I would much appriciate an good explanation on why this happens.

Kindest of regards
Fredrik

 

[bero]

I have now recieved my SPA3102, is there anyway for me to get this to work with a fax?

Regards
Fredrik

 

[KerryG]

I realize its not the answer you wanted but it is a reality of FAX technology today. A cheap ATA does not do Analog to t.38 conversion properly, or at least I haven't seen one that does yet so sending faxes through your PBX to an analog fax machine is going to either simply fail or have a very poor success rate. If you are going over SIP trunks, you might as well just start taking a hammer to your head as that will be less painful than trying to get good results with faxes. I wish there was a better answer I or anyone else can give you but until every fax machine in existence is replaced with t.38 compatible faxes, your best bet is analog phone lines plugged directly into the fax machine.

 

[leejor]

For what it's worth. I have been using an SPA1001 to a Voip Provider (analog line goes into a trunk on a Mitel PBX) with no problems for a number of years. I haven't tried running the fax through 3CX, there hasn't been a need at this point.

Getting a Fax to work requires all of the links in the chain to work. The fax is taking digital, converting it to analog to be converted back to digital at the far end, a lot can go wrong when you are trying to convert it back to digital in the middle again. Some newer fax machines won't slow down enough to recover from a lot of errors. A lot of VoIP providers don't "do" fax very well, if at all, Same thing with ATA's. When you get a couple of "things" in series that kinda work, sometimes, maybe, then you are really hooped.

With your setup, the reality is that it may just not work, plain and simple. However, most of us aren't satisfied with things NOT working and will keep going, looking for a solution. There may be one, it could just be a matter of "tweaking" some of the settings on the 2102. One person could get it working but because of different levels on their particular phone line, or make of fax machine the same settings could fail in a different setup.

The web has some great resources and many time you don't have to re-invent the wheel, you just have to good at using a search engine.

 

[KerryG]

This may help explain why this is such a problem
http://www.voipstore.com/the-facts-about-faxing/