Re: flexfax: DID Support?

[Chris Wood <cwood@wencor.com>]

On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, David Woolley wrote:

> > Does Hylafax support DID (assuming the modem does, etc)?
> 
> I don't think it does, but then there are no modems in the UK with special
> support for DID as DID is only available over digital trunks as non
> channel associated signalling.  I'm surprised that there is any 
> significant market for them in the USA.  Are they used to simulate
> multiple lines on one physical line, or does the PABX route the 
> DID digits forwards to the extensions?  In the latter case, is there
> really a national standard for such signalling?

There is a standard.  DID/DTMF.  The advantage of DID is that I can have a
fax/modem pool with routing.  Let's say I have 10 fax/modems in a pool.  
I have 3 published fax numbers.  If I point these at the fax/modem pool,
each line could get any one of the 10 modems.  Regularly you have to say
modems 1-3 print out on this printer in this department, 4-6 print in
another, etc.  With DID, it uses the modems effeciently.  One department
could use all 10 and still route correctly because the software would know
the DID and would know which DID belonged to which department, thus where
to print it.

That's the fax application of it.  We already have DID for our PBX.  You
can dial my desk directly because my desk has it's own DID.  For
example... 489-2000 through 489-2199 are DID numbers.  When the
phone company sees these numbers, they just pass them down our T-1. 
 Our pone system sees a number, 489-2097 for example, and knows
that 2097 is an extension and passes the call to 2097.  Because our
analog lines are on the PBX, I already have the ability to handle the DID
side of things.  

I'm rambling, sorry.



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Chris Wood                         Kitco, Inc.
801-489-2097                       Wencor West, Inc.
[cwood@wencor.com]                 Durham Aircraft Services
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