There are plenty of users around the world getting on VoIP for their calling needs and many of them get a quality service from their VoIP Service Provider. But there are not many people who are using the Fax capabilities that run through Same VoIP. Seems like a lot of research is yet to be done to improve and market this feature as well.

Since there aren't many who fax over VoIP and that's what makes me to ask this question, 'Have you tried faxing over your residential or office VoIP line?' It's not different that making a VoIP call and the only thing you don't do is talk, just let the connection be initiated with your computer and the destination's Fax machine (or Fax server). The difference is that most of ISP' provide a different Codec for FAX signal to run over VoIP line. Therefore, you must have often found your ISP giving you a separate line specifically for the purpose of Faxing due to different codec's and they don't recommend faxing on the VoIP line itself as it takes many retries to finish this job. When Fax tone is digitized, there is a heavy packet loss and that's why it's not recommended.

A small amount of packet loss on your VoIP line can still make you hear and talk a bit but a heavy packet loss when transmitting a fax message can completely distort or destroy the layout of the message at the destination. The result will certainly be a bad fax or error code or dropped call as well. Now, when you fax over a fax codec, there is still a packet loss but a lot less than the previous scenario and the fax would make it up to the destination with desired results. There were cases where a 10 pages long fax appeared good until the 6^th or 7^th page and then the last 3-4 pages were not up to the mark. There is a lot of work planning a Fax server to do such a tremendous job. Some good products are in the market giving exceptional solution. The best way is to get a FAXER and SCANNER at the same time to assist at time when the VoIP fax line is out of order, convert the scan into a PDF file and email it (if this not top confidential).

There is continuous research going on to build a better codec and its only matter of time before we get to look at a provider launching a much more reliable codec very soon. We all know VoIP is such a great technology which is going to stay for almost forever and new feature and upgrades would keep coming trying to satisfy the ongoing consumer hunger for more advancement.

Keep faxing as one of the feature before you on and purchase a VoIP connection and the best way to upgrade your VoIP knowledge to remain satisfied with the service.