Faxing technology certainly isn’t new. You might be wondering why the fax machine is even a topic for discussion in today’s world. It’s not that alternatives to the fax have yet to be invented. We have email and we even have faxes that can be sent and received via your computer. However, plenty of businesses in NYC rely on faxes –for anything from accepting a take-out food, or catering, order –to being able to send medical documents in compliance with HIPAA regulations.

Until recently, being able to fax reliably meant that businesses had to maintain subscriptions to costly POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) copper lines. It’s no secret that faxing over VoIP hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing. In one of my previous articles: Can I Fax Over VoIP Using My Fax Machine?, we discussed how faxing is technically possible over VoIP, but not flawless. In practice, the VoIP phone New York City relies on for their voice communications are nothing short of exceptional! The great voice quality, time-saving features, ease of maintenance and reliability have made believers of countless subscribers. However, even though VoIP is the way to go for business PBX needs, what happens when businesses in NYC want to send and receive faxes over VoIP?

If you wanted VoIP for your business, but wanted to fax (without maintaining a POTS line) faxing has been “best effort”.  It is true that, sometimes, fax machines can work over VoIP using an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter). However, there are a lot of hiccups and failed faxes using this method of conversion. One way around this is to use an online service to send and receive faxes to and from your computer –but some, such as those in the medical field, are often leery of using such services; despite many of them claiming to be HIPAA compliant.

For many industries, Internet faxing is perfectly acceptable, but for those who must use traditional fax technology, they have either: a) been forced to pay a significant sum to maintain an old copper phone line, or b) experienced frustrations with Analog Telephone Adapters (ATAs). Just on a side note, we’ve experienced a lot of success with ATAs for voice use; that’s primarily where they’ve been used.

Here’s the good news! Things are beginning to look promising for those diehard fax machine users. NetGen Communications is a company which has worked hard to tackle the issue of faxing over IP. Their research has led them to develop a technology, which they have named “Smart FOIP™”. NetGen Communications has stated that this technology can provide fax over IP technology that is “as reliable as PSTN fax calls”.

With this new generation of fax over IP technology (FoIP) the VoIP New York companies rely on is now more capable than ever. This is great news for companies who have been hesitant to switch over to VoIP because of faxing limitations. The introduction of Smart FOIP™ now makes VoIP an even more attractive option for companies who require Steadfast communications, with faxing capabilities.