SIP to analogue converters

[bright]

We have a version 7 Mitel MXe and would like to get rid of the ASU which runs about 6 fax machines. Can anyone recommend a device which will work on the MXe using SIP trunk licenses which we have purchased.

Something similar to the Cisco ATA


Edited July-15-2012: See the store for more on GrandStream's analog adapter

[ralph]

This was from another Mitel partner

[bright]

Hi Ralph,

Thx, but do they handle fax machines

[ralph]

I sent a pvt message also but thought I'd also post publicly.

I've actually never used them myself.   At one point I was investigating SIP to analog and the info I posted was sent to me by a Mitel Sales engineer that another dealer had passed to him.  But in general, Fax over IP doesn't work well unless going using T.38.    That's new on the Mitel 3300 and people have been having mixed results.   If the SIP to analog converter can be placed on the same data switch as the 3300, you would actually have a good chance of having it work ok.  G.711 only.  The problem comes in when there is any packet delay.   So if you're trying to use fax on a WAN it's not going to work for you at all. 

But for the cost, it may be worth a try.   Let me know what happens.
Ralph

[chadmaynard]

Even with T38, faxing (even at low baud rates) does not work well (at all). We have a site that purchased mitel's T38 faxing upgrade and tried to implement it. Currently Mitel has 3 engineers dedicated to out customer trying to figure out how to make it actually work. If you want to fax through your 3300 you'll have to make sure you stay on the TDM side of your 3300. You can't reliably use SIP or MiNET in any way. We purchased some Vegastream Vega 50 Europa units. They are a few hundred bucks but they actually work (and deploying them was cheaper for our customer than deploying the Mitel T38 upgrade). We have a single controller with a few PRIs on it that terminates dial tone into the ASU for faxing. From their we configured the Vega units to do 1:1 to the remote IP sites. If you wanted to get your Fax dial tone from a SIP service provider that supports faxing, you could do that as well and not need the ASU, just a good internet connection. The Vegastream units aren't simple to configure, but if you have trouble just call and they will walk you through it. They even offered to set mine up for me using a remote desktop tool.

[ralph]

Let me bounce this off of Y'all.
If you use T.38, standard modems break.   Does anyone agree/disagree?

We've put upgraded one customer with T.38 and afterwards credit card machines and modems no longer worked.   There wasn't a way I found aroung this.   My thought would be to set routes for modems that didn't implement T.38 but I discovered there is no way to do this.   So, if I have a customer that wants to upgrade to T.38 and has modems for monitoring HVAC systems, everything stops.   (I know this is strange but faxes had issues and the modems seems to work.)   

Am I seeing this wrong?   Or, can anyone else make modems work accross a network using T.38.

Also, chandmaynard, could you go into just a little more detail on how you were able to make faxes work with a SIP provider?  Was it SIP to the 3300 then accross the network to a remote 3300?

Ralph

[Mattmayn]

We are not using SIP in this situation, the main site has three PRIs and from there it is a standard clustered environment with nine remote sites. There is one Vegastream unit that is hooked to an ASUII (this is where the DNs for the remote faxes reside), the remote end has the other Vegastream unit is hooked directly to the fax machine (does not bring the other 3300 into the picture).

This setup has been in place for two full weeks now and I have not recieved a single complaint, I was getting at least one a day prior to this.

Is that of any help Ralph?

[chadmaynard]

Well we are using G.711u-law and T.38 over SIP between the vegastreams. We are using an ASU to provide dial tone to one Vega unit, which converts to SIP, goes across the network to another Vegastream which converts back to analog. If you wanted to use a SIP provider that supports faxing you could use the vega units without the need for the ASU, but it would be a completely separate installation from the 3300.

And as far as modems go... I've seen them work and not work. Mitel's sampling and compression software seems to adjust based on system and network load, and the modem's success seems to relate directly to this as well.

[Chakara]

  This is good stuff.  I've done the "analog to device to device to analog" before - but using Multitech devices.  Same game me thinks.  I used the MVP130's and whatever the 4 port version was.  Anyway, it worked - occasionally they report 30-40 page faxes not getting through.  Have you seen problems like this as well?

-Chak

[chadmaynard]

I haven't seen any issue yet; though I don't know if they have tried any 40 page transactions.