Subject: Re: [dispatch] [sipcore] FW: I-D Action:draft-jones-sip-forum-fax-problem-statement-00.txt

From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:36:11 -0500

The intent of the draft is to inform and clearly document to the IETF SIP
community that "there is a problem" with fax in SIP networks. In fact, the
problem seems to be much worse than some of us have originally believed. 

I recently met with several folks from the international wholesale carrier
community (the i3forum ) who are reporting similar problems with fax in
their networks. These issues have the potential for delaying significant SIP
deployment in these networks, aka loss of sales for the supplier community.
(hint)

Let us not forget that fax is a essential communications service in the PSTN
and that SIP networks MUST figure out ways to accommodate it.

The SIP Forum Fax Task group is currently investigating the problems
documented in the draft and taking additional input from all parties.
Everyone in the IETF SIP Community is free to participate in this work.

http://www.sipforum.org/content/view/310/252/

The goal is to develop a formal SIP Forum recommendation on what steps can
be taken to fix the problems. If it is determined that either SIP or T.38
protocols needs to be modified in some way then a follow on document ( ID or
ITU Liaison letter ) will be developed suggesting alternatives for
consideration.

With that follow up document in mind I do think is important to publish the
fax problem statement as Informational.

Richard Shockey
Shockey Consulting
Chairman of the Board of Directors SIP Forum
PSTN Mobile: +1 703.593.2683
<mailto:richard(at)shockey.us>
skype: rshockey101 
LinkedIn : http://www.linkedin.com/in/rshockey101
http//www.sipforum.org

>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: Dean Willis [mailto:[email-masked]]
>  Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 10:24 PM
>  To: Paul E. Jones
>  Cc: 'Richard Shockey'; [email-masked]
>  Subject: Re: [sipcore] FW: I-D Action:draft-jones-sip-forum-fax-
>  problem-statement-00.txt
>  
>  Paul E. Jones wrote:
>  > Folks,
>  >
>  > I didn't see any comments regarding this draft.  What is the opinion
>  about
>  > publishing this as an informational RFC?
>  
>  I'm sympathetic to the fax problem.
>  
>  But I'm not sure what the intent of publishing this draft as an RFC
>  might be. It reads more like a liaison statement from FaxTG to IETF
>  informing IETF of what FaxTG is working on. We have a less costly
>  pulication route for LS available that might be a better alternative
>  if
>  that's the case.
>  
>  If, however, you're leading towards another fax effort in IETF, then
>  it
>  might make sense to take this draft along the individual informational
>  route.
>  
>  --
>  Dean

---

From: Paul Kyzivat <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:33:32 -0500

I know this is a bit off topic, and doesn't alleviate the problem, but 
has anybody ever proposed that an INVITE with offer for fax be responded 
  to with a 3xx containing a mailto: URI? Or that ENUM for a fax device 
yield a mailto uri?

	Thanks,
	Paul

Richard Shockey wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> dispatch mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dispatch
>

---

From: "Paul E. Jones" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:26:57 -0500

Paul,

That could certainly be done and T.37 could be used on gateways to make that
work.

But, as you said, it does not fix the problem with T.38.  Perhaps equally
important, I think there are many, many businesses that will not be moving
to email anytime soon.  I wish they would -- that would solve this problem
:-)
 
Paul

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
> Behalf Of Paul Kyzivat
> Sent: Thursday, December 24, 2009 3:34 PM
> To: Richard Shockey
> Cc: 'Paul E. Jones'; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [sipcore] [dispatch] FW: I-D Action:draft-jones-sip-forum-
> fax-problem-statement-00.txt
> 
> sipcore mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/sipcore
>

---

From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:22:47 -0500

Paul its certainly not off topic and a reasonable idea, but not practical
for a number of reasons. What you describe is a classic T.37 mode for fax
that the old IETF Fax WG documented in RFC 3965. The problem is "non
repudiation". Fax has a certain legal standing and there is the requirement
that there be actual documentation that a fax was sent by foo at such and
such a time to bar and that the service provider or appropriate intermediary
can provide the appropriate documentation of such a transaction.

The problem is becoming more acute due to a variety of regulations, HIPPA
and USA SOX, real estate etal which require the transmission of a signature
as part of a legal filing and no, digital signatures have not proven to be
successful even though they have legal standing in most countries now.
Health care records cannot be sent by email for privacy reasons especially
test results.

Fax is pretty simple and it works for these class of transactions. As a
result my contacts in the fax industry have noted a minor resurgence in fax
machine and fax port sales. 

Some of us years ago thought using a variant of the Internet Print Protocol,
based on HTTP for real time document transmission would have been a better
idea but that went nowhere as well.

The issue is there something in SIP signaling that can alert the first hop
what this session really is such as ;USER=FAX that can help. I don't know,
that is what needs to be investigated.

>  From: Paul Kyzivat [mailto:[email-masked]]
>  Cc: 'Dean Willis'; 'Paul E. Jones'; [email-masked];
>  [email-masked]
>  Subject: Re: [dispatch] [sipcore] FW: I-D Action:draft-jones-sip-
>  forum-fax-problem-statement-00.txt
>

---

From: Dean Willis <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:22:20 -0600

>  to with a 3xx containing a mailto: URI? Or that ENUM for a fax device 

I was going to say "redirect to T.37, since real-time fax over VoIP is 
just a bad idea" but Paul beat me to it.

Seriously: fax over IP really only works when the real-time conversion 
is done close to the edge of the IP network. and the core transit is 
store-and-forward/ The close to the consumer edge, the better. Trying to 
retrofit the timing equirements of fax onto RTP is an exercise in 
futility for those who don't understand the concept of lossy networks.

--
Dean