atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information FIOS installed and FAX not wotking

Had Verizon FIOS installed. Unable to fax. Fax machine takes forever to connect to remote fax and after sometime I will get "Communication Error". Receiving faxes will do the same. With Verizon DSL I Never had problems connecting to remote fax. Error messages generated by fax machine indicate "communication error". Verizon claims that FIOS should not affect Fax at all and there is nothing they can do to fix this problem.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

SFranky
Norwalk, California

FIOS is using VOIP to deliver the phone line(s), unlike the traditional copper that was used before. VOIP does not carry fax or modem traffic very well, if it carries it at all. You'll probably need to have them reinstall your fax line on a copper pair or you will be pulling your hair out..

Around here Verizon won't put a fax or modem on FIOS, they leave the copper in place. These were all businesses and apparently yours is a residential install so they weren't paying attention or didn't care. I have seen faxes work with FIOS but it appears to be unreliable.

Take it up with Verizon.

-Hal

Verizon Tech told me recently , once verizon took the line to fiber they wouldn't put it back on cooper ,the concept being they want to migrate everything to fiber
also once you have fiber service they wouldn't install a new copper line .

this was just a friendly conversation about FIOS in a Phone room so I don't know if that is strict policy

I'm sure that's correct. But when they know a line is for a fax they will leave it on the copper. So I guess this guy is screwed, FIOS won't work and they won't switch it back to copper.

Like I said, take it up with Verizon.

-Hal

I must be one of the lucky ones. We have FiOS at home and I haven't had problems with data transmission.

I don't think FiOS is VoIP per-se. Isn't it still POTs service but delivered via fiber as opposed to copper :confused:

Did you sign for Verizon Voicewing as well? You get a POTS-to-VOIP adapter for the FIOS connection. In general most such adapters (and Voip services) have problems with analog faxing. If you're lucky, you'll find an adapter that's compatible with FOIP (fax over IP) as well as FIOS - or failing that with T.38 which is a fairly well implemented standard that also works most of the time.
My recommendation: get a regular old POTS line and avoid the headache.

Not really sure what the transmission method is. I remember that there are three separate carriers- telephone, internet and video. So voice has nothing to do with data. But why burst the VoIP junkies bubble?

-Hal

I think that's right, Voip would be an application on top of FIOS - like the Voicewing I mentioned above. I remember reading several White Papers from Verizon regarding FIOS years ago. I may have them somewhere. But if I remember correctly, there was to be a single hardware supplier (at least originally?), and it's a shared loop like cable. There were similarities also with DOCSIS, the cable modem protocol.

Did you sign for Verizon Voicewing as well? You get a POTS-to-VOIP adapter for the FIOS connection.

They will sell that to anybody with any broadband connection, not just their FIOS. Just trying to compete with Vonage et al.

-Hal