Fax Machines (Specific Models) That Work With Vonage

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 20, 2005 Posts: 2

Alright... I've given up on getting my Brother MFC-3820 to work with my vonage fax line with any reliability. I'm looking for a cheap old fax machine that runs at 9600 baud or less. What models have you had success with? Let's get a list started so we can find ones that run slower but have had more success running over VoIP.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: May 07, 2005 Posts: 6

Let me know if you find a fix, because I got my MFC 5440 CN and it works 90% of the time but some specific numbers I HAAAAVE to fax to wont work. I dont want to blame the machine and I would hate to go back to a bellsouth landline just for faxing, I have everything on my network use that machine, I will be damned if I have to buy a new one. I HATE bellsouth, so it is a no win situation for me. Had I come here before actually getting Vonage I might not had made the move.

<EDIT>
I tried:

4 connector cable
DSL filter
lowering bandwidth on Vonage to 50kbps
Cant change these Brother faxes to 9600, even using overseas mode doesnt help, specially wont help for receiving.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: May 07, 2005 Posts: 1

There are two thing I suggest:

1. try the *99 prefix in your dialing string before each fax. This sets the bandwidth to 90 for THAT call only.

2. Use a fax modem instead of a standalone fax machine. I have two faxmodems -- one i use just to dial, the other I use for faxing. None of the problems of standalone fax machines.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: May 07, 2005 Posts: 6

Check out my new post. I got my MFC 5440CN from Brother to work no problem so far by making some menu changes.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: May 28, 2005 Posts: 4

I quit using my 3820 because of the many other problems it had (replaced it with a Canon MP 780 which I love so far), but I did see in the 3820 fax sending menu a setting for Overseas mode, which was one of the options the Vonage tech told me to disable. If you havent tried turning this off yet, it might help

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: May 28, 2005 Posts: 4

I just noticed that under Features, Vonage is still claiming
"Vonage Fax Works with All Fax Machines". In light of the fact that some machines (such as Brother) can't be set to 9600 baud as the support techs are recommending, isn't it about time to stop making this claim?

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: May 23, 2005 Posts: 3

I just set up an HP OfficeJet 7310xi and it seems to work just fine. I've been able to send and recieve faxes with it just fine, w/o having to make adjustments.

Posts: 90 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 90

I have an hoary old (10+ years) Muratex M4500 plain paper and it seems to work OK with Vonage. Probably low baud rate.

I use maxemail (www.maxemail.com) to RECEIVE faxes. You get a dedicated fax number, and they e-mail the faxes to me as .pdf files for $14.99 per YEAR. Check it out before you become too frustrated trying to make your old machine work.

It works really well for me, because I travel a lot, and I can get my faxes by e-mail on my laptop via cellular modem. Some clients just plain refuse to e-mail. Plus, the faxes are saved on the maxemail website, or you can download them and save them as pdf documents.

You can send faxes using MAXEMAIL too, but I have not tried it yet. I think you have to scan the documents and create a pdf file and then upload it to the maxemail website. I'll get around to trying it someday soon....

It's like efax only about 1/20th the cost.

Good Luck. Try a digital solution to this analog problem.

Posts: 7 · Posted: Tue May 31, 2005 11:58 pm Post subject:

I use an HP 920 fax machine that works perfectly every time.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: May 28, 2005 Posts: 4

Kingart:
Have you called Brother about reducing the machine's baud rate? The machine has all kinds of bells and whistles, and even though it doesn't seem to show a manual way to set it, there may very well be some hidden setting that they might tell you about. With my 3820 problems I found the telephone support people to be fairly helpful.