Setting up faxing on a Poly OBi series analog telephone adapter (ATA) in zoom App

Using a Poly OBi302 or OBi508 analog telephone adapter connected to a fax machine, you can configure fax support for the Poly OBi series. As part of this article there are also recommendations on how to maximize the transmission rate of your fax machine.

Note: Check out FaxSIPit as an alternative to Zoom Phone for faxing.

Prerequisites for setting up faxing on a Poly OBi series ATA (analog telephone device)

• Ownership or administrative privileges of the account
• with Zoom Phone
• OBi302 or OBi508 analog telephone adapter provisioned with fax machine and connected to Poly OBi series
  Note:
• You can see more information about assisted provisioning in the Poly assisted provisioning guide.
• An ATA should be assigned to a phone user or a common area phone with a direct phone number and an appropriate calling package
• The handset consists of a dial pad and a handset (like a telephone analog) that are connected to the ATA
  Note:
• There may be a device you have connected to the ATA that doesn’t have a handset or dial pad. For example, a multi-function copier. Accessing the ATA’s web interface is not possible with the use of these devices.
• In the account-level settings of the desk phone, it is possible to turn on the Web interface.

Limitations of fax over Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

Fax over VoIP has known limitations when compared to traditional faxing. Industry-wide, these limitations are derived from technology. G.711 is the Internet fax standard used by Zoom and several VoIP companies. The standard is considered to be reliable, but it is open to interpretation by different providers. It also cannot be implemented in an end-to-end fashion.

With Zoom, you can send faxes over VoIP by connecting a fax machine via an analog terminal adapter (ATA) to the Internet. These best-effort fax services are cost-effective and more than adequate for many of our business customers with occasional faxing needs. Choose the faxing solution that best suits your business needs by evaluating your faxing requirements.

As part of our commitment to meeting your business needs, Zoom provides you with a wide range of quality services. Our recommendation is that you maintain an analog fax line connected to a traditional fax machine for reliability and consistency in the case that your business relies heavily on faxing large and multi-page documents regularly.

How to confirm ATA settings in the Zoom web portal

The Zoom web portal must be accessed before the ATA web interface can be used to setup faxing.

Note:

For devices that are licensed as Common Area Phones, you can skip steps 5 to 7. Voicemail and call queue membership are not supported by the Common Area Phone license.

1. Log in to Zoom.
2. Click Phone System Management in the navigation menu, then click Users & Rooms.
3. Click the Common Area Phones tab if the ATA is associated with a common area phone.
4. If you click on the Poly OBi ATA display name associated with the phone user or common area phone, you will find the IP address.
5. You need to make sure that Voicemail is disabled in the Policy tab.
6. You can do this by clicking the User Settings button.
7. Please make sure that the Receive Call Queue Calls option is disabled when you get to the Membership section by scrolling down.
8. Click View & Edit next to Keys & Positions under the Desk Phone section of your browser.
9. Ensure there is an assigned ATA line in the desk phone section of your browser.

How to set up faxing in the OBi ATA web interface

1. You can obtain the IP address by dialing *** from the analog phone connected to the ATA, then pressing 1.
2. The IP address will be displayed in the web browser.
   Note:
3. In Zoom Phone, provisioned devices do not have web access by default. Make sure the Web Interface setting is enabled in your account-level desk phone settings if you aren’t able to access the phone’s web interface.
4. Please enter the Zoom web portal admin password after signing in as admin.
5. After selecting Codecs, choose Profile A/B.
6. Enter the following parameters in the Codec Settings section:
   • EnableT38=Disable
   • If North America, use FXPassThroughCodec=G711U or FXPassThroughCodec=G711A
7. Then navigate to the Voice Services menu and select SP1.
8. Next, set the following parameter under the Calling Features section:
   • 1-Session-Max.
9. After that, navigate to Physical Interfaces and select the PHONEX Port,
10. Set the following parameters in the Calling Features section:
    • CallWaitingEnable: Disabled
    • ConferenceCallEnable: Disabled
    • UseForFaxOnly: Enabled
    • DetectFaxPageBreak: Enabled

Fax machine settings

Here are the recommended settings for your fax machine. It depends on the vendor and model of your fax machine. Information on these settings can be found in the vendor’s documentation.

• Set the Baud rate or speed of the fax transmission to lower (9600bps is the lowest).
• Make sure that Error Correction Mode (ECM) is disabled.
• Make sure that the compression mode is disabled.
• Lastly, minimize the Receive and Transmit Buffer.