Buy just fax line?

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 10, 2005 Posts: 19

Is it possible to puchase just a fax line without paying for a voice line? My dad is interested in getting Vonage service, but his rural phone company is not set up for LNP. So, instead he's thinking of getting rid of his dedicated fax line and just order a Vonage fax line. Is it possible to get just the fax line? Is it the same price as a single line of Vonage? Or maybe he would need to just order a regular Vonage line and use his fax machine on it?

Any help and/or ideas are appreciated. Thanks!

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

I don't believe Vonage offers just a Fax line. He would need to get a regular line and use it for Fax, as you suggest.

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 10, 2005 Posts: 19

So, can someone tell me the difference between a Vonage voice line versus a Vonage fax line? Vonage cust service told me that I could use the voice line for "occasional faxes" with "intermitten fax service". Just trying to figure out what that really means and if my Dad could actually use the voice line as his fax line.

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

Good question. If you search the forum for things about faxes, you'll find some information posted by Dan Connor. Basically, he says that the fax line is "stripped down", so it doesn't have things like voicemail. He also says, if I remember correctly, that the stripping down makes it optimum for fax. I don't think he gave details, but check for yourself.

For what it's worth, I send and receive faxes without a problem on my Vonage line, justed like I used to on my landline. I doubt that there is much, if any, significant difference between a Vonage fax line and a voice line.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2005 5:46 pm Post subject:

I've had no trouble using Vonage for faxing... if you do have trouble with it, call up Vonage tech support and have them change the packetization setting to "10", which seems to make a difference for some people. I'm still set to the default of 20 and haven't had any problem with it.

Posts: 605 · Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2005 7:09 pm Post subject:

I use MightyFax to fax via my regular Vonage line as well with no special settings. I dont even do the *99 or anything. Just set the baud rate to 9600 and fax away just like im making a regular telephone call. Works great. Winfax didnt work though. I dont know how well a regular fax machine would work but im sure it would work fine.

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 10, 2005 Posts: 19

Cool. Thanks for all your help. It seems that Vonage my be missing out on a market opportunity by not offering a "no frills" fax line to replace many people's dedicated fax (land) line. I'd think it would sell for the same as their offering that can be added to a regular account for $9.99 with no caller id, voicemail, call waiting, etc. But they didn't ask me. Wink

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

I suspect that if they offered a "no frills" fax line for $10 without a regular account, there would be a lot of people who would buy that instead of a regular line and use it for voice.

Posts: 423 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Oct 03, 2005 Posts: 423

a fax line is the same as a normal Vonage voice line, but there is no voicemail, call waiting etc...But no, you can't have a fax line on a device that has no voice line on it. The reason it's called a 'dedicated' fax line over Vonage is that it can have its own settings independent of the other line, since having echo cancellation turned off might help a fax or tivo, but its not so great for voice lines.

Before you get ready to take the Voip plunge and rely on it for faxing, like for a business, try it out for the 30 days and see how it works - Voip is only as good as your ISP. Also, check if your fax machine has features like ECM mode (you want it off) overseas/international mode (you want it on) v.34 or .v17 mode (you want v.17 instead of v.34), and basically the ability to adjust settings. Stay away from fax machines that are "auto everything." You won't be able to adjust anything that might have made the difference between a sent fax and a 'poor line condition' error page.

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 10, 2005 Posts: 19

Not necessarily. It could be sold without the free minutes included or the extra features like voicemail, call waiting, and caller id.