Internet Fax Service and the User Datagram Protocol

Internet faxing is a telephony innovation that enhances the method of sending and receiving of faxes through the internet. This communication enables the exchanging of faxes globally without incurring the high cost of international phone call charges.

The advantage of this modern service is the ability to use different models when broadcasting a toll free internet fax:

• E-mail to Fax – sending a fax via the e-mail to any fax machines.
• Web to Fax – sending a fax using a webpage GUI (Graphical User Interface) to any fax machines.
• Fax to Fax – sending a fax to and from a traditional fax machine by means of the internet.
• Web to Web – sending a fax to and from a webpage account.

Most of these models either utilize SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) or TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) where faxes can sometimes be delayed due to the design mechanism of these protocols. However, real-time faxing is now being developed using UDP (User Datagram Protocol) instead of the two standard protocols.

However, current UDP developments cannot guarantee the quality and reliability of the transmission due to its on-time delivery orientation and the environment of the internet. High packet and transmission loss of UDP is dependent on the performance of the underlying network. A decline in performance is particularly when it is experiencing too much load. Undesirable results that occur such as data deterioration, duplication and interference will likely have an effect on the quality of the internet fax service.

Further developments like ACR (Adaptive Control and Recovery), buffering, combined rate, control recovering and XOR mechanisms are now being devised to eliminate these problems.