OBi 202 / Freephoneline Faxing

[fjl332]

I set up an OBi 202 some time ago and it has been working well for voice calls, but so far I have not been able to set it up to send faxes from my Brother MFC-490CW print/fax/scan/copy machine. The Brother machine is set for VoIP transmissions.

I have the OBi 202 behind a Linksys WRT54GS NAT router. Initially I had the OBi 202 set up also as a NAT router (default) and voice calls worked just as well. Today I changed it to a repeater to avoid having two NAT routers and to be able to access its settings wirelessly with the new IP address issued by the Linksys router, but still faxes don't work. I went into the OBi 202's settings and enabled faxing (which was disabled by default). Still faxes don't work!

I used the OBi Portal to set up my providers, the first being Google Voice and the second Freephoneline to receive calls (since GV does not work to receive calls in Canada). Port 1 is GV and Port 2 is Freephoneline with faxing enabled.

Any help to get my fax service working would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

quickcurrent

[Shale]

So you set  Menu>Compatibility>Miscellaneous>Basic in your Fax Machine. I see that there is an Overseas Mode which must be enabled each time you want to try it.


What did "Port 1 is GV and Port 2 is Freephoneline with faxing enabled." mean? Does that mean that you set up the Freephoneonline SP with T.38 enabled and as the preferred codec? If you do that, Freephoneline should do better at faxing. I have not tried it.

You could also see if gain levels help. Here is what I did with my gain levels for voice on my OBi202: http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=5235.0

[fjl332]

Thanks Shale.

Yes, I've got the Menu>Fax>Miscellaneous>Compatibility>Basic(VoIP) selected on the fax machine.
Don't know where the overseas mode is.

I am using physical RJ11 port 1 (SP1) on the OBi202 for Google Voice and physical RJ11 port 2 (SP2) for Freephoneline (i.e. where the fax machine is plugged in). I have enabled the T38 codec for SP2, but don't know what you mean by having it as the preferred codec, don't see that option anywhere!

I am using a set of Uniden cordless phones with the OBi202 and found that these phones were actually very loud by default when I started using the OBi202, so I just turned down the volume on the phone sets. Not sure what that has to do with the fax function, though.

My faxing is still not working.

[fjl332]

Just noticed that in the in the OBi Setup under
Service Providers>ITSP Profile B>SIP>X_FaxPassThroughSignal
there are options when the default check mark is unchecked, I just don't know if that will help or which option to choose.

[Shale]

There are 2 codec profiles, A and B. Make the SIP for your fax VOIP provider be the only one using codec profile B. How? I don't know, but somebody will.

Then disable each codec except T.38 (which seems to be called " fax event" in OBitalk.

Just a general concept. In the admin guide, try searching for "codec profile" to see if that leads you somewhere useful. I know I am being sketchy.

[fjl332]

Still no luck. Anybody?

[Shale]

Still no luck. Anybody?

Luck? What did you change, and what happens when somebody tries to send you a fax? The fax machine connects for 5 minutes and then gives up, or what?

Did you try making the fax line only accept T.38?  What happened? You can look at Status>Call Status during a call to see what codec is being used. I can't try that because my SIP plan does not support T.38 I don't know if yours does.  Maybe yours does not either.

[sdb-]

If Freephoneline does not support T.38, it will do no good to try and use it.

Instead, on the OBi only allow G.711u or G.711a.  Hopefully Freephoneline supports those!  (They date from the Bell system in the 1970's dawn of digital phone equipment.)  'a' is likely better (it sounds better if you have good equipment and ears) but 'u' is the typical north american standard.

On the fax, limit the speed to 9600 (usually, but you might try slower) and turn OFF error correction.  (ECC gets confused by VoIP and will terminate the call.)

[fjl332]

I've tried a variety of things that I have found on the net that supposedly worked for other equipment combinations on Freephoneline, all without success, don't remember all the details now, and have turned everything back to factory defaults since nothing that I have tried worked.

I am not trying to receive faxes at this point, only send. There is another way to receive them that I will work on later, but now I am concentrating on sending only. Freephoneline does not provide support for faxing, but I have read that it can be done with their system, they just won't help if there is a problem. I have not seen any information on how to do it with an OBi 202, so I think I am in uncharted territory.

Unfortunately I am only hacking as I don't have a PhD in faxology, lol.

When I tried faxing, I got the ring, the handshake, and it looked like it was going to work. Then it hesitated for a while (maybe a minute) and then gave me a communication error, don't remember the number, but always the same error.

I will try the suggestions from Shale and sdb- and report back, thanks for the suggestions.

[fjl332]

After almost giving up on using this set up for sending faxes, my last attempt provided a positive result, so for anyone with similar equipment and service provider here is how I did it:

OBi202 configuration - Codec Profile B - all codecs disabled with only G711U left on.

Brother MFC-490CW settings - Menu>Fax>Miscellaneous>Compatibility>Basic(for VoIP)

A word of caution - I don't know if it was a fluke that it worked, as I have only send a single page for which I got a "completed" message on the fax machine. I don't know if will work again or if it will work for multiple pages. I have not contacted the recipient to ensure that the fax got through OK. Hopefully all is good for all faxes, though.

Thanks, sdb-, for your suggestions.

[sdb-]

Glad to hear it worked for you.

Using the same approach (maximum quality codec, limiting speed, no ECC) I was able to fax some important documents in December using google voice, Anveo and Localphone.  (I changed my default outgoing service twice last month. )

I keep expecting that no ECC is going to someday cause problems, but so far so good...  And more recipients are accepting scan & upload or e-mail instead of fax, further limiting the amount of faxing I need.  Maybe someday it will die!

[Webslinger]

OBi202 configuration - Codec Profile B - all codecs disabled with only G711U left on.

Then you just faxed using G711u and without the T.38 protocol

I'm not seeing good evidence that freephoneline faxing can actually be done using the T.38 protocol.

And Aveno (retail) only supports T.38 through it's online Fax Portal.

Only Aveno Direct supports T.38 with Prime routing.