[aklug] Re: Faxing and cell phones

I'd love to work on a side project like this if my darn Non-compete didn't prohibit me. However if
I were to do such a thing.. it would be done thusly.

Either an 8 line POTS hunt group a modem pool (lowest cost recovery) or a fractional PRI from ACS
(highest cost recovery)

8 Line hunt <> modem pool <> hylafax (avantfax frontend)

To me this means you can set up several virtual extensions pointing to your 8 line hunt group and
sell them.. very costly per virtual line. All outbound faxes would be unidentified via ANI however
identified generically via fax header which isn't that universal.

-OR-

fractional PRI <> asterisk <> iaxmodem pool <> hylafax (avantfax frontend)
                       \
                        \ <> Other products

This would provide 8 to 23 channels of lovely all digital voice into an asterisk server. The first
100 DID are usually free and come in a contiguous block. You can reserve the first 50 for FAX and
other local voice services and use the latter half for external services like DID resale. Asterisk
can do whatever you tell it to do as long as you have the programming moxy, it makes for a good PBX
as well as generic PSTN/VoIP gateway which can be programmed through external scripts.

iaxmodem is a spandsp based product that operates very smoothly. It sets up /dev/ttyIAX[0-z]
depending on your configuration and hylafax can operate cleanly on top of each of the character
devices. I am currently using this setup internally where I work.

Avantfax is a usable hylafax web portal which draws it's configuration from a database. A
programmer with some go-get-em could set up a fax-service-in-a-box solution that would operate well
enough. If only there were a better way to federate the boxes and use hylafax protocol between
them. Oh wellz.

I'm open to questions if anybody is interested. Jim it is very tempting to just set this up on my
own and see if it profits.. sigh.. dang job security.

- Shane

Jim Gribbin wrote:
> I was tempted a while back to set up something akin to efax for the
> local market. I haven't been able to come up with phone numbers/lines at
> a price to make it monetarily feasible.
>
> Copper at $25 to $35 per month per line just doesn't cut it.
>
> I can get voip lines at a reasonable price from Clearwire, but not
> enough upstream bandwidth to make it practical. At 256K max up, if I
> started getting very many faxes to deal with ...
>
> I suspect that with the 8Mb, potential anyway, upload of AT&Ts might put
> a small fax service within reach. What would be needed though, is the
> availability of a couple dozen(?) incoming phone numbers at a workable
> price.
>
> On Thu, 2009-08-20 at 08:09 -0800, barsalou wrote:
>> Quoting Jim Gribbin <jimgribbin@gmail.com>:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> I don't suppose AT&T will give people some voip #'s to go along with
>>> their wireless internet service? Ala - Clearwire. With that combination,
>>> I'd be tempted to set up my own fax server.
>>>
>> This doesn't seem likely. It certainly isn't a current service that I
>> am aware of.
>>
>> I agree with Jim though, I try to avoid them, but was recently asked
>> for my fax number.
>>
>> I have a unit hooked up to my home phone, but it doesn't quite work
>> how I'd like it to work. I can get the fax, but it can be a hassle
>> sometimes.
>>
>> My brothers office phone allows you to press an extra number to send a
>> fax, but I'm not quite sure what happens after that.
>>
>> Mike B.
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>> This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
>>
>
> ---------
> To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
> with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.
>
---------
To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.
Received on Thu Aug 20 16:03:48 2009