T.38 Phase I to Phase II
Frustrated customer on the phone:
"I can't make your BladeWare software work. It
won't even send a T.38 fax between two
BladeWare systems in different locations."
"Uhh…OK," says the Commetrex tech. "How
are the two locations connected?"
"Well, through my ITSP!"
That afternoon the ITSP e-mails to inform our
customer that when his calls were re-routed
through XO, rather than Global Crossing, they
worked since Global Crossing had not yet "turned
up the T.38 service." And so it goes as we
transition from T.38 Phase I to Phase II.
T.38 Phase I was a simpler time when T.38
was only used within the enterprise. The T.38
session stopped at the enterprise edge, as did
the other IP telephony media. So, interop was
limited to getting the IP-fax server or the T.38-
capable analog telephone adapter (ATA) to
work with the gateway. Took time in the early
stages of Phase I, but pretty straightforward.
Now, we're venturing into T.38 Phase II.
With SIP trunking obviating the need for the
enterprise gateway, users and vendors are
looking for end-to-end T.38 transport from
deep within the enterprise to the access
service provider, through the backbone
IP provider to the IP-PSTN gateway. This
presents the system integrator with a lot of
moving parts that, since we are still at the
front end of Phase II, have never been
tested. Users, OEMs, and service providers
need T.38 pioneer, such as Commetrex,
to help them put the pieces together.
If you're interested in learning more about
T.38's transition from Phase I to Phase II,
get in touch with
Mike Coffee or call 770-407-6021
for a copy of Commetrex' latest white paper,
The State of IP Fax.
A Sign of Spring?
Possibly. We just killed a bug that had
been hiding under the permafrost for
12 years.
One of our TerminatingT38 licensees that
has widely deployed their media server
as a hosted-services platform recently came
up with a tough one. As luck would have
it, the problem only showed up in the field;
no amount of testing could duplicate the
problem. Finally, we tracked it down to the
product's image-conversion library. Still
couldn't isolate it. Finally, a breakthrough!
One of our customer's engineers happened to
be on site when the problem occurred and
was able to capture the exact image data
being processed. It turned out that the image
data would never originate with a modem,
well, none that we can imagine or have
seen in 15 years. It would only come from
a gateway…a T.38 peer that could create
the perfect conditions required to let that
bug emerge from the permafrost. It would
only occur under these conditions:
-The first buffer contained an end-of-line
pattern,
-The image line was longer than a valid
line,
-There were no more lines in the buffer,
-The user had selected to add header in
overlay mode.
Then it happened. Go figure!
We've now added this file to our image-conversion
library test vectors. Over the years, Commetrex
has collected several files it uses in its
regression-test suite. If you'd like to put your
fax software to the test, we'd be glad to send
our TIFF-F collection to you free of charge. All
we ask in exchange is a little information.
If you're interested, contact Cliff Schornak at
Cliff Schornak or call 770-407-6027. Make
sure you give him your complete contact details
and what, exactly, you'll be testing.
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Are you an OpenVXi user?
If you are, this is for you. As an OpenVXi user,
you might have been looking for significant
performance improvement, improved Linux
support, built-in DTMF recognizer, or enhanced
international support with double-byte
characters. Well, now you can have it with
Commetrex' BladeWareVXi,.
The good news about BladeWareVXi is that even
with these added features, it is a virtual drop-in
replacement for OpenVXi, as it utilizes the same
APIs, so it's a snap for you to migrate to the
newer enhanced BladeWareVXi. Not only that,
we intend to support VoiceXML 3.0 in
BladeWareVXi, once the standard is ratified
by the W3C.
And, by the way, in response to the current
economic environment, we also announced
a new pricing scheme that eliminates per-port
charges and allows for a single annual fee or
monthly payments, depending on your
preference.
Contact Tom Ray at Tom Ray
or call him at 770-407-6025 for more information.
Interested in T.38 Interop & Load testing?
Well, you have come to the right place. In
2002, Commetrex led the industry effort for
T.38 interoperability when we launched the
T.38 Interoperability Test Lab. Now, we've
gone one step further and have introduced
the BladeWare Fax Interop Test Suite (FITS),
which supports the 16 tests we previously featured
in the Interop Lab, allowing you to perform the
same testing internally as was offered in the
lab. BladeWare FITS is a ready-to-test system
comprised of a client application based on the
BladeWare stand-alone IP-based media server
that supports T.38 and G.711 pass-through
interop and load testing.
How does it work? FITS uses BladeWare to
place and accept SIP calls and to send-receive
faxes for testing purposes. BladeWare's fax
capability is based on Commetrex' TerminatingT38,
which is the same technology that became the
industry's T.38 reference standard through its use
in Commetrex' T.38 Interop Lab.
So, why did we discontinue the Interop Lab? We
found that scheduling a mutually convenient time
for our test engineers and those of our testing partners
was a major obstacle. But with BladeWare FITS, a
developer can perform the same tests with the same
reference platform to his own schedule. The FITS
product was originally developed as a means for our
technology licensees to reduce their time-to-market.
BladeWare FITS is licensed for 50 or 100 ports, so
you can do load testing, as well at interop testing.
So, why did we discontinue the Interop Lab? We
found that scheduling a mutually convenient time
for our test engineers and those of our testing partners
was a major obstacle. But with BladeWare FITS, a
developer can perform the same tests with the same
reference platform to his own schedule. The FITS
product was originally developed as a means for our
technology licensees to reduce their time-to-market.
BladeWare FITS is licensed for 50 or 100 ports, so
you can do load testing, as well at interop testing.
Want to learn more? Contact Tom Ray at Tom Ray or call 770-407-6025.
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