|
Resources >
How it Works
How it Works
Natural Data’s Digital Fax Service works similarly
to Voice over IP (VoIP) services. Rather than a dedicated
analog fax line, you simply plug your fax into our patented
pending Fax Terminal Adapter. The FTA then plugs into your
network connection. Simply configure the service once, and
that’s it. You can even use the fax number you already
have (number portability required).
When a fax is sent, the fax gets immediately digitized and
packaged in reliable secure TCP packets and sent to Natural
Data Inc. secure Network Operations Centre ( NOC) for final
delivery to its destination. If the destination is also NOAH
enabled the fax is routed directly there. If the destination
is an analog fax machine anywhere in the world, the data is
converted back to fax data and sent the "last mile"over
the phone lines to the destination.
Because Digital Fax Service uses the Internet connection
you already have, a dedicated phone line is not required to
send and recieve faxes, thus eliminating the telephone line
and it's associated charges altogether.
Further, since Digital Fax converts your fax to digital TCP/IP
information, it moves over the Internet just like email—securely,
quickly, inexpensively, and with perfect reproduction. And
once that data is in digital form, additional services can
provide:
- Document storage and logging, providing full Sarbanes-Oxley
compliance for fax machines
- Junk fax control
- Fax to email, email to fax, fax to fax
- Account cost recovery.
- Virus and worm free
- Multiple faxes can be received simultaneously
Fax over Voice over IP
Why can’t the fax machine simply be connected to a Voice
over IP line? While doing so seems pretty logical, Voice over
IP wasn’t designed to carry fax data, so fax over VoIP
doesn’t work reliably. Here’s the technical reasons
why.
There are two key reasons why sending faxes over a VoIP line
is an unreliable solution:
1. Voice over IP technology uses UDP packets to send voice
data to the receiving phone line. UDP packets are a special
kind of IP communications that prioritizes timing over data
integrity. UDP is useful when the data should move quickly
to the other end, and when a packet being delayed is not acceptable.
If a packet is delayed, UDP simply ignores it. That’s
why Voice over IP connections sometimes have breaks in the
conversation — those are simply lost UDP packets.
UDP is great for voice. If packets are delayed, holding back
the "message" until all the packets are received
would result in the conversation being delayed, making it
nearly impossible to carry on a conversation. So UDP is used,
with the compromise that lost or delayed packets are ignored
and short gaps in the conversation are acceptable.
However, UDP is very difficult for fax (or for that matter
modem) data. Because faxes use a constant "carrier"
tone to carry the data. That carrier is required to be constant
for the fax to deliver the data to the other end. Breaks in
the carrier are interpreted as a disconnected line and the
transmission fails. Even error-correcting fax machines which
can handle a short disconnect, will fail if there are too
many disconnects or breaks in the carrier conversation.
Natural Data’s Digital Fax Terminal Device ( NOAH)
, receives the entire fax from the originating fax machine
and then converts it into a digital file before transmitting,
so the transaction is totally immune to network congestion
or any other type of internet abnormalities.As a matter of
fact, a "Noah" based transaction can even be delivered
over satellite link or a coat hanger for that matter.No Quality
of Service is required, unlike VoIP based products.Service
transfers data using TCP packets, and no carrier tone is required.
This is the same kind of communication used by email. For
faxes, as for email, short delays are acceptable and packets
that arrive at the other end out of order are reordered, retries
are done as necessary until 100% of the data arrives at the
destination. That’s why Natural Data’s Digital
Fax Solution ( NOAH) can be relied upon for very high-quality
faxing results.
2. With Voice over IP technology, your voice is converted
to digital data—UDP packets as we said before. That
conversion also requires compression. The voice compression
technology is designed to take advantage of the changes in
your voice as well as the gaps to use the bandwidth efficiently.
Fax machines use all the bandwidth available on an analog
line—sort of like having dozens of people screaming
into the phone at the same time using all the bandwidth. When
the compression technologies hear that, they cannot compress
the data to the point where it will fit in the voice bandwidth.
In fact, the Voice over IP line, with compression, looks like
a very narrow bandwidth connection to the fax. The only way
the fax can connect is to reduce the speed of the fax modem,
or baud rate, to some lower rate.
Natural Data’s Digital Fax Service doesn’t require
the carrier tone at all. The fax data is immediately converted
to TCP/IP packets and are transferred at the speed of email—dramatically
faster than fax data.
In conclusion, Natural Data’s Digital Fax Solution
( NOAH) provides accuracy and speed that is untouched not
only by Voice over IP technology, but even by traditional
analog lines! ~
For more information on Natural Data products, please
contact us.
|
