phones treating Vonage call as a fax?

Posts: 44 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jan 19, 2005 Posts: 44

I had an odd occurence happen to me yesterday. I made a call to a business yesterday from my Vonage line (still in the nidst of a LNP), and both times they answered, their fax machine kicked off.

I immediately retried a third time, this time with my POTS phone. No problems. I asked them if they turned the fax off, they said no. They have one of those systems that pushes what they perceive as a fax call to the fax machine. It seems somehow they determined that a call coming from the Vonage network is a fax data call.

Anyone else heard of this?

Posts: 281 · Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 12:20 pm Post subject:

Did it ring longer then normal the other 2 times you called? Some of those systems will default to the fax machine.. additionally it could be that they have a fax line as the last roll-over line in their hunt group and maybe all of their lines were busy?

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 16, 2005 Posts: 16

I would suspect an issue on the receiving end of the calls. Its impossible for an incoming call to trigger a fax machine pickup without the proper tone signal sequence.

Posts: 44 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jan 19, 2005 Posts: 44

matth wrote:

Did it ring longer then normal the other 2 times you called? Some of those systems will default to the fax machine.. additionally it could be that they have a fax line as the last roll-over line in their hunt group and maybe all of their lines were busy?

Nope, each time the phone picked up after 4 rings. Each time I heard a voice, but the first two times (with Vonage) the fax kicked in. The third time, with POTS, no fax.

The third time I asked specifically if they had disabled their fax, they said they did nothing. Something about Vonage made their system decide it was a fax, apparently. It's the first time I ran across this.

Posts: 281 · Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 12:49 pm Post subject:

I can't think of anything... I've installed several of these systems and the only way they know it is a fax is by listening for the beep....beep...beeep tones.... Vonage doesn't generate those.

So what you are saying is they pickedup...started talking.. and then the fax picked up over top of them? This definately sounds like a fault of their fax box. I'm wondering if you didn't maybe come in on a different line, and the fax or fax switcher box was malfunctioning?

Posts: 44 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jan 19, 2005 Posts: 44

matth wrote:

I can't think of anything... I've installed several of these systems and the only way they know it is a fax is by listening for the beep....beep...beeep tones.... Vonage doesn't generate those.

So what you are saying is they pickedup...started talking.. and then the fax picked up over top of them? This definately sounds like a fault of their fax box. I'm wondering if you didn't maybe come in on a different line, and the fax or fax switcher box was malfunctioning?

That is exactly how it happened. The only thing that was an oddity is the one time it didn't happen was when I used the POTS line. Other than that, I'm more than happy to accept it as a fault on their end. I'll try and call again tonight and see what happens.

Posts: 281 · Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 1:01 pm Post subject:

Yes, please try to duplicate it.. if you can duplicate it again... on another day.. then it's grounds for investigation I would think.... though I can't, off hand, think of what would cause that to happen.

Posts: 44 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jan 19, 2005 Posts: 44

Tried again. Two calls. First one on Vonage, went to fax. Second one POTS, no fax.

Something is up for sure, but no idea on whose end.

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 16, 2005 Posts: 16

Man oh man, this is quite an interesting problem. This is what bothers me. Their telco generates all the signalling for their phones numbers and it doesn't matter if the sending end is PSTN, Voip or Cell.

Have you tried calling a friend from both lines to see if there is a difference in how the call is rung on their end? I don't know for sure but I suspect that after each ring burst on the receiving end, the status of the connection is checked before sending the next ringing burst. It could be that the status check takes longer on the Voip, hence the silent period is longer and the fax is interpreting this as a different ring cadence and answering.

Posts: 281 · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 11:54 am Post subject:

Maybe.. the only issue I have with that is when you dial from a fax machine... the fax machine doesn't make the line ring any differently...