Sonic.net

I'm fairly new to Sonic's service (FTTN) and am still working out some kinks with the new service...

Since switching from AT&T, our fax machine (HP OfficeJet 8500) has been unable to complete faxes.
1. The fax machine successfully connects to the recipient fax machine,
2. It starts sending page 1,
3. At what appears to be a consistent length of time, in reports a failure.
This happens 100% of the time with all our faxes.

I personally don't use fax that much and am happy using PDF's and emails.
However, my wife runs two small businesses with lots of payroll and just wants her fax machine to work!

The HP error 346, seems to indicate a break in connection or a noisy line. However, when I pick up the phone, I don't hear static.

What might this be?

The Sonic FTTN service comes with a VOIP line and thus you may have trouble with fax, modem etc.

Some thoughts....

google "faxing over voip"

You can switch over to G.711 via the "set keys" option. Not sure that will do it but it is easy to try.

You can bug Sonic about getting to needed settings to allow faxing. Note that the manual for your ATA shows:

"The HT70X is a full feature voice and fax-over IP device".

You could also switch to the Sonic faxing service (no charge). Not as simple as using a fax machine if you have a sheet of paper in your hand and you want to fax it.

Maybe there is a * command that can be used before sending a fax. I don't have one so might have missed it.

Ok, figured some more out.

hardware: Grandstream HT701
manual can be found here:
http://www.grandstream.com/products/ht_ ... nglish.pdf

And it turns out, you can make the changes from the sonic member tools page. It's just really buried (really).

sonic member tools > voice tab > click on home phone number to access settings
you'll then see an embedded blue interface. In that, click the settings tab
then, at the "Desk Phone" line, click the "set keys" link
You'll now get a pop up window for the Grandstream unit, click "Edit"
Click "Network Settings
Click "SIP"
on the line "Codec Preferences" select the "Yes" radio button.
(Hover on the little question mark to see "Should we use G.711 as the first codec?"

And finally, at the bottom of the browser window, don't forget to click "Save changes"


Edit: The Grandstream unit supports T.38 codec (specifically for fax) and automatically tries to switch when it detects a fax transmission (in either direction). However, Sonic would have to support it at their end for this feature to work.

Edit #2: This still doesn't work! If I fax anything more than about 1/2 a page, then it fails. Codec is G.711, the printer's error correction mode is set to off. Seems like I'd really need a T.38 codec to fax more than a page.

I'm getting nowhere with the traditional FAX machine on VOIP. This is getting frustrating because we frequently have to fax paper documents for our businesses. I had no idea when ordering the fusion service that we would loose our fax system.

I've tried lowered BAUD, disabled ECM and G.711 codec with no success.
The ATA hardware claims to support the right protocols for traditional faxing.
I can only guess that somewhere (Sonic HQ or AT&T Central), there's no support for T38 fax codec.

Whats the chance we can get T38 to work on the fusion VOIP line? I totally know this is dinosaur technology but the typical household still expects to use it.

The ATAs actually do support T.38 and are setup to use T.38 when possible on our network.. There are instances where the carrier which we hand the call off to does not support T.38 and it will not be possible to terminate w/ T.38. I don't think we officially support faxing over FTTN ATAs.. The ATAs should also be doing autonomous fallback to G.711u/T.38 when faxing (even when using the default codec set of G.729ab).