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IP FAX, FAQs, & Facts The Internet is changing how faxes look and work; as a result, Web-oriented analytical chemists can benefit from sending fax material via the Internet-protocol, FAX IP. It provides convenience, security, authenticity, format compatibility, and lower costs.
FAX facts
You need to understand a little about regular faxing before looking at fax over IP, which is also called FoIP or F/IP. When your regular fax machine or PC-based faxmodem sends a document, it goes "offhook", gets a dial-tone, dials a number, makes a virtual circuit connection within Why FAX IP? the telecommunications system to the reFor traveling scientists, an Internet-based ceiving fax machine, and sends the fax mailbox provides access to received faxes from anywhere in the world. One can scanned document. The binary data reprereceive faxes 24 hours a day without a dedi- senting the scanned fax document are compressed to save time and bandwidth, just cated phone line or worrying whether the like compressed JPEG image files. Both paper has run out. Also, there is only one address to distribute to colleagues. Your binary; but there fire major differences. faxes become part of your e-mail files for JPEG files are compressed by dividing storage and retrieval. the image into small matrices and reducing their size by encoding techniques. On the Fax transmissions avoid the textual and other hand, the original fax compression graphical formatting problems that often standard was encoded horizontally so that plague transmissions across different hardlong black-and-white lines were repreware platforms, operating systems, software versions, and continents. "Attachments" are sented by shorter binary strings. Later, optional modified codes were introduced, already open. Have you ever played "What version of Windows and Word are they using so that the more common patterns were in Wollongong this week"? Many scientists, sent as even shorter strings. Eventually, vertical compression was added. Group 3 aggravated by the odd typographical fonts that pop up on edited manuscripts, frustrated fax machines may use the original standard compression or add the optional methods. by live-linked endnotes that disappear when a Mac word processor chews a Wintel docu- Group 3 machines can give compressions of —7.5:1 at 200 dpi and 60-s scan times at ment or tumbled 9 600 baud Group 4 gives a ~15'1 cominto a world pression ratio at 400 dpi over 64-kbaud oftruncated word ISDN lines wrapped lines, and seen the vis ions of Grain: a prairie poem (1), Many chemists already use faxmodems, which provide one solution for often wish for the concreteness of fax connecting a PC to the outside fax world. transmissions. Data-modems and fax-modems are differFacsimile transmission was patented in ent. In technical terms, fax-modems are 1843; the first machine was demonstrated in 1851; and commercial service was estab- synchronous, half duplex; whereas datamodems are often asynchronous, full dulished in Paris in 1865. A hundred years plex devices. These jargon terms merely later, the new electronics age created describe whether the two communicating Group 1 fax devices. Despite its friendliunits synchronize their timing and ness, legal acceptance, and hardware stanwhether both can transmit at the same dardization, many have criticized the fax for its incompatibility with the software and time. Fax-modems "hand-shake" to determine the speeds and compression techdocuments of the PC revolution. That's all niques being used. about to change. 478 A
Analytical Chemistry News & Features, July 1, 1998
High-end internal modems offer dataand fax-modem capabilities by using special chip-sets. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that the two functions might not coexist. As a result, if you are already connected to the Internet over a single dial-up line, you need to disconnect from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), send your fax, and then re-connect. A fax-server can remove this frustration and coalesce many PC-fax users and their activities into one outgoing fax telephone line. Notes, WinFax Pro, or Exchange can use this queued approach (2). http://www.facsys.com; gopher://wiretap.spies.com:70/00/Library/ Techdoc/Standard/ccitt.t4; http://www. faximum com/faqs/fax and httpV/www faximum com/w3vlib/fax The paradigm shift
Soon, desktop computers will provide integrated services—e-mail, phone, and fax. While voice-over IP (VoIP or V/IP) currently encounters excessive delays on the Internet—and is only slowly emerging as a useful tool—F/IP is another matter. It merges seamlessly into your e-mail system, making storage and retrieval of fax material easy and intuitive. Faxing can thus be done in real-time or as a store-and-forward option. The "nickel a page" fax era is near. Sending is easy but receiving is a bit trickier because the fax has to get into the right e-mail box. Let's look: IP->POTS: This new approach began when Internet users realized there was an inexpensive way to send a fax to remote contacts—just e-mail the document to a friend near the recipient, and ask them to fax the printout over the public switched telephone network. Standard e-mail formats and faxmodems make this a convenient route even today. There are Web sites that list reputable places around the globe that will perform this function. Many of these services are free. They may require the installation
of special software on your computer to provide consistent addressing, and delays (latencies) of up to 12 h are possible. Nevertheless, major universities and cities support this approach. http://www.savetz. com/fax/; http://www.netpower.no/frost/ fax/; http://www.fitech.sk/faxy.html Store-and-Forward F/IP: Alternative approaches suitable for small-volume users involve special software on your PC that can assemble scanned images, charts, bar graphs, drawings, schematics, and spreadsheets into a compound document and send it across the Internet. All that is needed is a TCP/IP Internet connection, a software tool set that usually comes with your operating system and browsers [e.g., messaging application programming interface (MAPI) simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) and multipurpose internet mail extensions (MI1VIE)] This allows you to run behind an organizational firewall (which keeps outsiders out) and to use the server as an intermediate point Faxes can be sent from any Windows aDDlication using the mint command and mail-merge messaees can be transmitted to multiple recipients Often the recipient doesn't need a conv of
your fax software to receive faxes through their Internet e-mail address—just Windows 95, Windows NT or a Tagged Image File Format, Fax (TIFF-F) viewer (http://www. winfiles.com/explain.html). The document is transmitted from the sender's desktop fax software to a special queuing server. The server then routes faxes via an Internet connection to another remote server located in geographical proximity to the destination fax machine. From this remote server, the fax is sent to its target address using the local telephone system, if necessary. (Sound familiar?) The sender receives an acknowledgment via a returned e-mail receipt. The servers may be part of your group's network, http:// www.atfax.com/; http://www.faxmission. com/; http://www.netcentric.com/; and http://www dialogic com But there are also ISPs that offer this capability as a value-added service. Domestic and international F/IP can be outsourced with no organizational commitment to equipment, personnel, or infrastructures. Some ISPs charge a monthly server access fee, plus a per-minute or perpage transaction charge. Five- to tenminute latencies are reported in the northeastern U.S. urban corridor. Incidentally, new fax machines are being delivered with direct Internet connectivity. For typical details demos and downloads see http:// www castelle com/; http://www.psi.net/ internet/; http"//www uunet com/lang en/ products/; http'//www Panasonic com/ PCSC/POPC/; and httrjV/ifax com Real-time F/IP: In the phone system, faxes involve virtual switched connections between two connected fax points. The receiver and transmitter are connected during the entire transfer. The next step into the future, however, focuses on the Internet as the prime real-time carrier. The Internet divides data into IP packets that are "guaranteed" to get to a certain location in some time and by some route.
They are then reassembled at the receiving end. Closely managed nets can provide service with a latency of
