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From: wendt@parsons (Alan W)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.fax
Subject: Re: Fax / telephone : Seperate lines ?
Message-ID: <15091@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Date: 22 May 91 16:21:47 GMT
References: <289@altos86.Altos.COM>
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Organization: Colorado State Computer Science Department
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In article <289@altos86.Altos.COM> ratan@altos86.UUCP (Ratan Tipirneni) writes:
>
>I am considering buying a Fax. My question is, do I have to get
>a seperate line for the fax or can the same one that I use for
>my telephone be used for the fax also? In the later case how
>does the fax machine detect that the incoming call is from another
>fax ?
>

There are a number of fax/modem/voice switch boxes on the market.
I think Heartland and Comb (mail order discount houses) have switchers
for about $100.  I do not have these phone numbers, call 1-800-555-1212
for 800 area information.  Black Box sells one for about $200 that has
a recording to tell people to "punch 3 to talk to a person, or 2 for fax".
Black Box's phone # is 412-746-5530.  Command Communications makes one that
has worked well for us after some EPROM hacking.  Their # is 303-750-6434.
The first ones we bought were made by Hi-Tech Resources of Ellsworth,
Maine, but this company is apparently out of business.  If anyone
knows anymore about Hi-Tech's products I would appreciate hearing about
it.

Some fax machines do not send CNG tones so switching voice vs. fax
automatically is problematic; the Black Box technique with the recording
should work well unless the caller has a dial phone.  Otherwise, the best
that can be done is to ring the fax and see if it connects, or to
ring the person and let them decide and manually re-route fax calls.
Switching modem/fax is not too difficult, the systems generally require
the calling modem to send additional touchtones to switch to the modem
line, and if no humans will be using the line it is possible to tie
the fax and voice output lines together, which makes things pretty 
reliable.

Alan Wendt