Re: [hylafax-users] large multiport systems

["Darren Nickerson" <darren.nickerson@ifax.com>]

> I'd assumed, perhaps naively, that I could find rackmount modems (like
> ISPORTe's) for cheap on the used market since so many ISPs have switched
> from analog to digital.  I'd hoped we could find the digital version of
> these (with T1 interfaces) so we wouldn't have to break a CT3 of phone
> lines down to the DS0 level.  We haven't had much luck finding the
> ISPORTe digital modems...perhaps everyone switched to digital
> access-servers or went out of the dial-up business before upgrading to
> digital modems.

I think you need to take a good hard look at some of the assumptions that
brought you to your present outlook. It seems to me that you're planning to
design an enterprise fax solution around outdated hardware whose primary
purpose (even when it was state of the art) was data, not FAX.

See http://www.elilabs.com/mgarc/10-97/archive/0174.html for an illustration
of how you might be in for a lot of pain getting that particular hardware in
your "for instance" to do fax.

I can't say this emphatically enough ... the modem (or fax board) is the
single most important architecture decision you'll make, and it's the one
people most often try to economise on, often to their own detriment. A lot
of devices do fax poorly. If you're expert enough to distinguish which
"deals" will leave you with solid fax hardware, by all means go bargain
hunting. But we strongly recommend you consider using either (a) a product
that was designed to do FAX as a primary function, or (b) a data modem whose
manufacturer has a strong focus on (and commitment to) the fax side of
things.

Examples of (a), which we consider the only suitable solution for
large-scale modern enterprise fax deployments:

    (i) Brooktrout TR1034 V.34 intelligent fax boards and
    (ii) Eicon Diva Server V.34 intelligent fax boards

Examples of (b) (which we recommend for smaller deployments where budget is
the primary driver):

   (i)  MultiTech V.92 V.34 fax modems
   (ii) Comtrol RocketModemIIs


> > Let's assume you decide to go the Cyclades board and analog modem route.
> > You'd be well advised to select Multitech's V.92 modems, and the
> > MultiModemZBA V.92 retails for $179. Take 24 of those, and throw in the
> > Cyclades 64 port expander ... well I'll let you do the math but you're
close
> > to the $4999 price of an Eicon board.
>
> At those prices, the Eicon starts to look much more attractive...but I
> didn't figure we'd pay anywhere near that per modem port.  A couple years
> ago, we actually disposed of our analog modems...even rackmount ones,
> because we couldn't find anyone willing to pay enough for them to be worth
> shipping them.

The espression "false economy" and "you get what you pay for" come to mind
here. Be very very careful you understand any limitations of the hardware
you plan to get on the cheap. Understand how that affects your up-front
costs, and the ongoing costs as well. We very frequently see HylaFAX blamed
for poor fax performance (poor call completion, distorted faxes, faxes that
can never be sent successfully etc), but when we look under the covers
there's a no-name modem from the 1990's running buggy class2 firmware.


> > What you're not taking into account, however, is the cost of a T1 from
your
> > telco, and the cost of 24 messy analog lines (both monthly recurring and
>
> That's been taken care of.  There's already a CT3 coming in, currently
> hooked up to a cisco AS5400 which we found out a little late can only
> handle about 1/4 the number simultaneous faxes as it has ports for.

So you're already digital then. Great!

> We're looking for a more functional replacement.

Understandably. And they exist, ... they're just not on ebay ;-)

> > the monthly recurring cost ... long term this can mean big savings!
Perhaps
> > you're also not taking into account the fact that you can leverage the
V.34
> > capability of the EICON boards, as well as the ECM error correction and
MMR
> > compression to get better throughput than you can get from the analog
> > modems. Less time on the phone is a smaller phone bill, and these
savings
>
> I was under the impression the vast majority of fax machines only support
> 14.4kbps and 9600kbps as maximum speeds.  How does v.34 come into play?

You're not up to date on deployment statistics ... V.34 is much more common
than that. It's estimated that about 60% of all laser fax machines and 25%
of inkjet models sold today are V.34 enabled. By 2005, as much as 75% of all
laser fax machines and 50% of all inkjet fax machines sold will be V.34
enabled.

> The compression issue, I wasn't aware of.  So by choosing the wrong
> modems, we could dramatically increase the length of each call?

Here's a few articles that may be of interest:

http://www.brooktrout.com/whitepapers/pdf/fax_smart_choice.pdf
http://www.brooktrout.com/whitepapers/pdf/v34_whitepaper.pdf
http://www.brooktrout.com/products/roi/v34fax/

-Darren

--
Darren Nickerson
Senior Sales & Support Engineer
iFax Solutions, Inc. www.ifax.com
darren.nickerson@ifax.com
+1.215.438.4638 office
+1.215.243.8335 fax


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