Telephony, Fax & Internet, Oh My!

Ken Dibble

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Aug 30, 2022, 2:36:27 PM8/30/22

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Hi folks,

I'm looking to be educated here. I don't really trust any of the
vendors involved to give me straight answers to my questions so I'm
hoping some people here can do that. I'll try to keep this as brief
as I can, but it's, uh, complicated.

We currently have Lumen (previously CenturyLink, previously Level3,
previously TW Telecom) for both phone and internet service. We have
two separate dedicated fiber circuits, one for internet and one for
voice/fax service.

We have a 3CX VoIP software PBX running on Debian Linux; it connects
to a completely separate network for the phones. On the outgoing side
it goes to a Patton device (probably an analog VoIP gateway), then
through a Sophos firewall/router, then to a PRI supplied by Lumen via
an Adtran device.

For fax we have a RightFax software fax server running on Windows
2012 server. The RightFax server connects to a Sonus hardware fax
gateway, thence to another Adtran PRI provided by Lumen.

When we set this up in 2016 I was firmly opposed to using SIP trunks
for voice service. I hated (still hate) poor VoIP audio quality (even
with the higher-resolution codecs), and I wanted a guaranteed amount
of bandwidth for the voice traffic. I did not trust any QOS system to
give me the best-possible quality. I understand that SIP trunk
technology has improved some since then, but this issue still worries
me. I don't really know if I now have anything to worry about
concerning SIP trunks for voice service; I'd like some objective
information. (If it helps, we use, and will continue to use, actual
POE wired phones from Yealink, for most people here.)

As for fax; fax over conventional SIP trunks is still bad news. (We
have to continue to use our RightFax fax server. We deal with a lot
of medical providers who refuse to use email, and we have enough fax
traffic to make cloud/email based fax services uneconomical for us.)
However, I have an offer from a vendor for a fax-specific SIP trunk
service that is designed for the T.38 protocol.

The reason I'm considering all this now is that I need to increase
our internet bandwidth. The current Lumen setup only provides 100
mbps synchronous service, and the hardware is maxed out at that
level. We would have to replace the hardware to get more bandwidth from Lumen.

Fortunately I don't have to truly understand all of the technical
details of making this stuff work; my vendors will handle that. But I
do have to make a decision as to which path to follow here.

So I've been exploring other options. If I get rid of the PRI/Adtran
and Patton devices for voice service I can get 1 gbps internet from
Lumen and maintain the PRI for fax for about the same price I'm
paying now for their services.

The proposed fax-only SIP trunk service is very inexpensive, and if I
go with that I can also dispense with the PRI Adtran for fax, as well
as the Sonus device, which carries a considerable annual support cost
that would be gone.

I can also get dedicated fiber 1 gbps internet-only service from a
completely different provider (Crown Castle, if anyone's heard of
them) for even less than Lumen would charge.

Lumen's one advantage is that if I go with their SIP trunk service I
can keep their "private" fiber line between my building and their
local equipment; if I go with another SIP trunk vendor it has to go
through that vendor's line. I'm not sure this matters. In either case
the line would be fiber and dedicated.

So what are the pitfalls here?

I am hearing that PRI technology is slowly going away; some providers
are simply cutting off their PRI customers, and the Lumen people did
hint that this will happen with them eventually also. As it stands
right now, it was a major struggle to get their engineers to
understand how our system is configured and what would be necessary
to continue with this design while also giving me increased
bandwidth. I can easily see that I'd have a hard time getting timely
support from them if something goes wrong with that technology. So is
there any value in holding on to the PRIs at all if I can get what I
need without them?

Do I really need to worry about audio quality with SIP trunks for
voice service anymore?

Has anyone ever used a "special" T.38 fax SIP trunk service? What
results did you have?

Is there a real advantage to keeping Lumen's fiber, that runs
directly from our building to theirs?

Is it better to have completely separate providers for voice and
internet service?

If I go with a different internet provider, and use SIP service,
would it be better to have them give me a low-bandwidth circuit or
line for voice plus a separate high-bandwidth circuit for internet
(realizing that both are actually internet)?

Thanks for any thoughts.

Ken Dibble
www.stic-cil.org

Kurt Buff

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Aug 30, 2022, 3:10:06 PM8/30/22

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One note, just for consideration: $work is making the jump from POTS
lines to SIP trunks, on the way to getting rid of our Panasonic PBXs -
because POTS connections will be going up by 7x in the near future.

Other thoughts:
- Getting a bigger pipe from a single provider will probably be
cheaper, and they can peel off from the Ethernet drop to provide
sufficient bandwidth for for fax/voice, which is very common.
- Having a single provider leaves you vulnerable to outage of both
your services at the same time, if they have an internal network
problem
- On the gripping hand, BIFs (Backhoe Induced Failures) tend to be
local, and would affect both service providers, so ...

Your call on this. I'd tend to go with a single provider (as the old
saying goes, a single throat to choke).

Kurt

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Michael B. Smith

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Aug 30, 2022, 3:13:42 PM8/30/22

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I'm making the jump from landline to SIP here at $home this month. I've done it at enough clients, it's time for me to do it too. 😊

I'm also getting a fax SIP trunk as a second line.

Thanks.

Regards,

Michael B. Smith

Managing Consultant

Smith Consulting, LLC

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Denes, Laszlo

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Aug 31, 2022, 7:41:50 AM8/31/22

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We use fax provider called faxcore (similar to rightfax) and a PBX (SIP). We spent weeks trying to get the bloody thing to work with it (PBX techs were stumped) and initially could not and when it worked we had a lot of issues with older physical fax machines that some other hospitals use (and yeah same thing 'fax more secure than email nonsense, because only secure if fax machine is secure from access). Faxcore techs were correct when they said that we might have to downgrade the protocol to G711 (for reason above) and although that works it does have a lot of resend and disconnects. Just something to watch out for. Make sure Telco and PBX provider know what they are doing, because at times we had set faxcore and PBX to G711 but Telco did not play ball. Took a lot of effort!
https://www.dialogic.com/-/media/products/docs/whitepapers/12687-t38-g711-foip-wp.pdf

Thank you in advance for your time.

Laszlo
“Nothing means nothing, but the cream always rises to the top”

Laszlo Denes
Technical Analyst Servers
Information Systems
t: ext. 214
lde...@torontograce.org

-----Original Message-----
From: ntsys...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ntsys...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ken Dibble
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2022 2:36 PM
To: ntsys...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [ntsysadmin] Telephony, Fax & Internet, Oh My!

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Jonathan Raper

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Aug 31, 2022, 1:46:40 PM8/31/22

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I started making the leap to SIP YEARS ago. We had all internet, voice, and data coming in from the same carrier, over the same fiber. Fax lines ran over Cisco ATAs and had no issues.

I’ve been running SIP at home for years as well. Also no issues.

I am running all faxing through cloud, so I cannot speak to that, other than to say that if they claim and can prove T.38 compatibility, then you should be fine. I fought those battles long ago with faxing and healthcare, so I understand your hesitation.

Best of luck!

Thanks,

Jonboy

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From: ntsys...@googlegroups.com <ntsys...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Roy Adams <r...@racs.com.au>
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2022 11:47:56 AM
To: ntsys...@googlegroups.com <ntsys...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [ntsysadmin] Telephony, Fax & Internet, Oh My!

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ntsysadmin/CAK8EJS0wyz_Ypm_uaYkFXPkzx%2BbNbm8SguTe61hGWOPa5Db0JQ%40mail.gmail.com.

Ken Dibble

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Sep 2, 2022, 11:40:12 AM9/2/22

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I knew this was gonna be a "niche" issue when I posted it. I am kind of surprised by the very small number of responses though. Thank you everybody, very much.

Ken Dibble
www.stic-cil.org

At 01:46 PM 8/31/2022, Jonathan Raper wrote:

I started making the leap to SIP YEARS ago. We had all internet, voice, and data coming in from the same carrier, over the same fiber. Fax lines ran over Cisco ATAs and had no issues.

I've been running SIP at home for years as well. Also no issues.

I am running all faxing through cloud, so I cannot speak to that, other than to say that if they claim and can prove T.38 compatibility, then you shouldâ€‹ be fine. I fought those battles long ago with faxing and healthcare, so I understand your hesitation.

Have you been good today? à² _à²

On Wed, 31 Aug 2022 at 05:13, Michael B. Smith <mic...@smithcons.com> wrote:

I'm making the jump from landline to SIP here at $home this month. I've done it at enough clients, it's time for me to do it too. ðŸ˜Š

Melvin Backus

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Sep 6, 2022, 2:24:54 PM9/6/22

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Just catching up from being out, but none of what you’re looking at doing should pose a problem. We dumped our PRI lines years ago. The only place they were being used at that point was inbound traffic for the Mitel PBX. That was replaced by a fiber “flex” circuit which just splits off part of the bandwidth to provide the SIP traffic required to a converter which then tied to the PBX. That said, 75% of our phones were already SIP at the time and the choice not to go 100% SIP was more one of expedience than technical issues. If I were to do it again I’d be 100% SIP. As for FAX, it is still the bane of my existence as the primary users refuse to use cloud based fax for their outbound fax requirements. I can’t speak to the in house fax part, I left that behind when I last changed jobs for this one.

All that said we have luckily been able to provide multiple fiber circuits from multiple providers and also from multiple entry points to our facility to minimize if not eliminate the BIF factor as I think someone called it earlier. Cut a fiber, well, there’s still one at the other end of the building which is fed from the other cross street and which don’t have adjacent paths for at least 5 miles. That’s mostly a matter of luck with regards to location however unless you’re willing to spend big bucks in most cases.

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Ken Dibble

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Sep 7, 2022, 11:29:10 AM9/7/22

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That's very good to hear. I'm about to take some vacation but it looks like we'll be doing this as a fall project. Time to start herding the cats.

Thanks!

Ken Dibble
www.stic-cil.org

At 02:24 PM 9/6/2022, Melvin Backus wrote:

Just catching up from being out, but none of what you're looking at doing should pose a problem. We dumped our PRI lines years ago. The only place they were being used at that point was inbound traffic for the Mitel PBX. That was replaced by a fiber "flex" circuit which just splits off part of the bandwidth to provide the SIP traffic required to a converter which then tied to the PBX. That said, 75% of our phones were already SIP at the time and the choice not to go 100% SIP was more one of expedience than technical issues. If I were to do it again I'd be 100% SIP. As for FAX, it is still the bane of my existence as the primary users refuse to use cloud based fax for their outbound fax requirements. I can't speak to the in house fax part, I left that behind when I last changed jobs for this one.

All that said we have luckily been able to provide multiple fiber circuits from multiple providers and also from multiple entry points to our facility to minimize if not eliminate the BIF factor as I think someone called it earlier. Cut a fiber, well, there's still one at the other end of the building which is fed from the other cross street and which don't have adjacent paths for at least 5 miles. That's mostly a matter of luck with regards to location however unless you're willing to spend big bucks in most cases.

--
There are 10 kinds of people in the world...
those who understand binary and those who don't.

Â¯\_(ãƒ„)_/Â¯

From: ntsys...@googlegroups.com <ntsys...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Ken Dibble
Sent: Friday, September 2, 2022 11:40 AM
To: ntsys...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [ntsysadmin] Telephony, Fax & Internet, Oh My!

I knew this was gonna be a "niche" issue when I posted it. I am kind of surprised by the very small number of responses though. Thank you everybody, very much.

Ken Dibble
www.stic-cil.org

At 01:46 PM 8/31/2022, Jonathan Raper wrote:

I started making the leap to SIP YEARS ago. We had all internet, voice, and data coming in from the same carrier, over the same fiber. Fax lines ran over Cisco ATAs and had no issues.

I've been running SIP at home for years as well. Also no issues.

I am running all faxing through cloud, so I cannot speak to that, other than to say that if they claim and can prove T.38 compatibility, then you should be fine. I fought those battles long ago with faxing and healthcare, so I understand your hesitation.

Best of luck!

Thanks,

Jonboy

To: ntsys...@googlegroups.com < ntsys...@googlegroups.com>

VERY Timing Sensitive

Packet Order MATTERS

QoS applied

Jitter Buffer DISABLED

Echo Cancel DISABLED

VAD/Silence Suppression DISABLED

Codec Negotiation DISABLED

Transcoding DISABLED

Fax-Passthrough Mode DISABLED

Fax parameters:

On Wed, 31 Aug 2022 at 05:13, Michael B. Smith <mic...@smithcons.com> wrote:

I'm making the jump from landline to SIP here at $home this month. I've done it at enough clients, it's time for me to do it too.

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