Background

Plain Old Telephone Service (abbreviate as POTS) is an old technology that support people’s communication for over 100 years. POTS is stable and reliable, but that's if it's popular among people and operators are willing to maintain it. Today, due to the decrease of user, it leads to higher cost per user and longer maintenance time. POTS is being phased out.

In the past, FAX is highly reliant on POTS, it operated on analog signals that aligned seamlessly with the way fax machines encode and transmit image data as audible tones. It provided low-latency and relatively noise-free communication, critical for the accuracy of fax transmissions. Compared to early digital communication methods, POTS was more stable and less prone to disruption, ensuring faxes reached their destination intact.

However, FCC Order 19-72A1 has marked the end-of-life for traditional analog POTS line systems. Telecom providers like AT&T, Verizon has states that they will start discontinuing service in some areas, this finally led to the rising cost and longer maintenance time. Nowadays, FAX still widely applied for Medical and Business, it is nearly the only way to conduct valid and legal file transfers remotely.

Where is the Future of FAX While POTS is Being Phased Out?

There are already many Cloud FAX platforms now, but for many offices and hospital, replacing all the legacy FAX machine and move to cloud platform is not as straightforward as it looks. it’s not just about cost but also the habits of users.

Is there a way to get rid of POTS without replacing legacy devices and smoothly and seamlessly transition to New Technology？With Vola POTS Replacement hardware, you can rest assured that all your FAX machines can seamlessly run on VoIP.

Hardware Support T.30 and T.38

In regular ATA feature, Vola hardware support two typical FAX communication protocol - T.30 and T.38. T.30 is the standard that defines how traditional fax machines communicate over the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

T.38 was introduced to enable reliable FAX communication over IP networks, addressing the challenges of transmitting traditional T.30 FAX signals over VoIP or other packet-switched networks. T.38 transmits FAX data in real time, it converts the analog signals generated by T.30 into digital packets suitable for IP transmission and vice versa. But it required both end deployed T.38-capable gateways or adapters.

Both T.30 and T.38 are supported in Vola hardware that serve critical roles in FAX communication. Simplify, with T.30 being the original fax signaling protocol and ATA will convert T.30 raw data to IP segments by G.711 pass through or T.38.

Those ideas sound great but putting it into practice is always full of challenges. Even though the T.38 protocol mechanism can enable FAX transmission over IP network, the IP network environment is unpredictable. Common problems such as delay, packet loss, and jitter make fax transmission over VoIP network unreliable.

Vola POTS Media SBC in FAX

In order to solve the unpredictable IP network problem for FAX transmission, Vola brings the POTS Media SBC to enhance VoIP data transmit from Vola hardware ATA to Cloud-based POTS Media SBC. We implement advance features like forward error correction mechanism and redundancy technology between Vola hardware and POTS Media SBC, POTS Media SBC deployed in core network and consider as reliable VoIP data transmission from SBC to any UC Cloud by G.711 codec without compression.

Empower by Vola POTS Media SBC, you could build your own the FAX POTS replacement solution and remain the legacy fax machine, keep sending and receiving will be as easy as when it’s on the old POTS and users do not need to change their operating habits.

About Vola

Vola Networks, a US-based equipment provider, specializes in hardware solutions for POTS applications. By leveraging reliable hardware and POTS media SBC, Vola addresses challenges in Alarms, Elevator Phones, Fax and Modem Communications. Vola's POTS media SBC is fully compatible with UC Cloud platforms such as Crexendo, Broadsoft and Metaswitch, etc.

For Managed Service Providers, Vola offers hardware and POTS media SBC to upgrade existing platform to support Alarm, Fax and Modem. For Wireless SDWAN Service Providers, Vola provides hardware, POTS media SBC and Crexendo UC platform, delivering a comprehensive turnkey POTS replacement solution.