Do I really need a Vonage dedicated fax line

Posts: 65

What's the story here, do I need a separate (line 2) line from Vonage or not? Many of the fax machine spec's state the device works with line sharing of voice. Vonage says you need their separate service.

Is it line specific or machine specific?

I would like to do whatever works the first time without having to resort to trial and error situations.

Any recommendations as to what is guaranteed (sort of) to work?

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

Well, first, some fax machines seem to work with Vonage with no problems and others don't, and the reasons aren't always apparent. However, the ones that do work seem to work as well with sharing a Vonage voice line as with a dedicated fax line. Keep in mind that you have to receive faxes manually if you share a voice line. To me, that's the biggest disadvantage of not having a dedicated fax line.

Posts: 65 · Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 6:14 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the info Steve. I'm not trying to avoid a 2nd line for fax, although I am a very casual user of fax. I just want to go with what works. If I go with a dedicated line from Vonage, is there a general consensus with any specific brands/models of fax machines that will play as intended?

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

I'm afraid not. My own HP OfficeJet 720 works fine. You might want to do a search on the forum for specific models.

Posts: 69 · Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:20 am Post subject:

My HP 3310 works fine. I only send/receive about 3-4 faxes a month, but i like having a dedicated line just because people can FAX me stuff and I do not have to be here to accept it.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 29, 2005 Posts: 6

My wife has a lexmark and I have it set to accept automatically when detecting the fax tone. its been working great for over a year.

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 18, 2007 Posts: 9

Just make sure you can set the 'Error correction mode' to off. AFAIK, Brother faxes don't have that option. BTW, dedicated fax line is nothing more than a discounted second line to accomodate fax users.

ajay wrote:

Thanks for the info Steve. I'm not trying to avoid a 2nd line for fax, although I am a very casual user of fax. I just want to go with what works. If I go with a dedicated line from Vonage, is there a general consensus with any specific brands/models of fax machines that will play as intended?

Posts: 23 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 27, 2006 Posts: 23

I've used a couple of Brother and a couple of HP fax machines with Vonage without too much trouble. The Brother's did have an "Overseas Mode" which seemed to help (even when just FAXing across town). I'm not sure how it affects speed, resolution and/or error correction, but it did make the difference.

Posts: 27 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Oct 02, 2006 Posts: 27

You can certainly try to use your voice line for faxing, and if you call tech support they can perform some tweaks to your line to improve performance. The biggest thing about the 2nd line fax, for those who are interested, is that echo cancellation is turned off, so you get full accoustic effect from the FXS port. Would make for a pretty uncomfortable voice conversation, but the faxes love it.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: May 09, 2007 Posts: 1

Neither my Lexmark X7170 or my HP 920 work with Vonage on a voice line. Cry

My cable is 768 KBs up and 10MB down. My WINFAX pro and XP works fine though. However that means that I have to scan hard copies then fax. Just my 2 cents worth

Well I just answered my own question...sort of. After reading a bit in here, I tried lowering the speed to 14400 (was 33000) and turning off Error Control checking on the Lexmark.

Worked just fine then Very Happy