NetGen Communications is proud of the record its parent company, Commetrex, has amassed over the last 17 years as it has led the industry effort to make FoIP work in carrier networks. It began with Commetrex’ invention of TerminatingT38, an integration of Commetrex’ T.30 and T.38. This industry first was important on several levels, not the least of which was that it finally gave the industry the technology a server needed to send and receive T.38 and G.711 “pass-through” FoIPfaxes in order to test gateways.
T.38 Interoperability Test Lab
In January 2002 Commetrex opened the T38 Interoperability Test Lab. It was open at no charge to any company with a fielded product. As the industry grew, this quickly because unsustainable. But before we had to close the “Lab”, we assisted Brecis Communications, Cisco, Excel Switching, D2 Technologies, Lucent, Mediatrx Telecom, Nexge, Nuera, Sonus, xFax, and Ricoh in testing their products, giving the industry a huge boost along the path to T.38 interop. The 16-point test plan the Lab used then is the basis of BladeWare FITS test version of the BladeWare fax server.
In 2003, we added G.711 support to TerminatingT38, creating Mult-Modal Terminating Fax (MMTF), an industry-first that gave the test-equipment industry just what it needed to jump in and help. Empirix, Hermon Laboratories, Ixia, NetHawk, RADCOM, Spirent, Tektroix, and others soon followed suit. Meanwhile, late in the last decade, Commetrex developed FaxTap for PCM, FaxTap for T.38, and, finally, FaxTap NG, which picks up for FoIP where Wireshark leaves off. FaxTap NG analyzes any FoIP session, including rendering the image if it is transferred in the session.
Over the last 13 years, Commetrex—and now NetGen—has progressively let the industry in the quest to make FoIP work, first in the enterprise and now in carrier networks—“the final frontier”. We are doing it with BladeWare Trident, which includes BladeWare FITS, FaxTap NG, and our Platinum support package to work with the service provider and carrier to iron out the kinks in their approach to FoIP.
