Is it possible to do some sort of FaxBack with Asterisk? I know faxing via voip is very crude at best. Some have had great success while others (most) have failed miserably. Has anyone done anything like this? Maybe using an actuall fax modem in the server to do the faxing over a standard land line instead of voip? Just use * to answer the phone and interact with the caller?
Given other’s success in using IAXModem with Hylafax, I assume there’s a possibility. But you’ll have to reinvent FAXback user interface a cheap Brother FAX machine already has, or do something better (Web, etc.) or setting up the menu tree would be a pain. Unless you are thinking very high volume, a FAX machine (or a bunch of them) could be cheaper, faster. Yeah, a FAX server would be cheaper, too. (Some ITSP supports FAX over their line.)
By FaxBack I mean a method where someone can call in, navagate an IVR and then the system would “fax back” whatever document they selected. We mass fax outbound but alot of the recipients either use the same line for voice or they have to be there to press “answer” on their fax machine. It would be nice if they could call in whenever they felt like it and request the fax. We would not have to be here when they call.
Check out IntelliFAX line from Brother. Many have FAXback built-in. You are limited by their internal storage, though.
Hmm… Not sure how easily this could be done during the same call. If they called in, entered their fax number (or maybe account number and you looked up their fax number, if you didn’t want it publicly available) then selected the documents and hung up, and then your system using Hylafax/IAXmodem could call them right back. This could be easily done.
Hey Lacymoore,
I know exactly what you want, i was looking into this some time ago actually for my Brothers business, basically this is how i come up with the design for it but not yet even bothered to look at how to write it up and implement it (Mind you though Asterisk can handle it just perfectly fine).
[Equipment]
Asterisk server with either a Digium 400P card or a Sangoma 200 series card, 4 ports all configured for in-bound and out-bound dialing (Assuming your not expecting high traffic volumes).
[Software/programming]
Either Pearl or PHP AGI scripts, this would manage the IVR and the Navigation and even the Data base so you can have all the files inputted into a Data Base {More likely just a folder where the DB references too} from a website, this was done so my Brother could just go to an admin page i do up, click the browse button, then click upload and have the document stored in the DB or on the system somewhere.
The AGI scripts would even control certain aspects of the In-Bound Dialing and would also Control the Out-Bound Dialing, this was you can filly integrate it into a Data Base and work on almost real time basis if you wanted too.
[The Flow of it all]
1. Customer Calls in on the phone
2. Customer navigates through the IVR prompts I.E;
b. Product Documentation - - - (2). Legal Documentation - - - (3). Etc Etc Etc[/b]
3. Customer Selects the Documentation they want
4. Script tells the IVR to say Thank you and to play voice file… Thank you, we will fax you back shortly with your requested document.
5. Hangs up user
6. Waits the designated time frame you tell it too and then faxes that Document, or alternatively you can have it e-mailed to them as a PDF if they are a registered Customer.
For this scenario it was a little more complex, the IVR would ask for their customer account code, if they did not have one then the system would only allow them to browse through certain documents not the entire range as they were not Registered users of the system, this of course would be handled once again from the DB, which can also be administered from a web page, so you can basically set this up for some one and let them do all the work 
I am more then confident that this can be done with Asterisk, not so confident doing it over VoIP though, allthough you could setup the In-Bound calls to come over a VoIP trunk from your ITSP but set your Out-Bound calls to go over your PSTN trunk, this to me seems like a more safer measure.
If you can find a programmer to do this, you have yourself a very good model, hell i would even sell it after it was designed 
[No one needs to flame me]
Hope this gives you an idea, but from my perspective Asterisk can handle this very very well.
Cheers,
David.
Faxing has had much mixed results with PCI cards. But there has been much more success with ATAs such as the Linksys SPA2100. See the post by DrWho in the following link; forums.digium.com/viewtopic.php? … hlight=fax . I use that and it works without any problem and its easy to setup.