Background

FaxSav is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission as an authorized long distance carrier enabling direct interconnection with all other long distance carriers. FaxSav has utilized this interconnection capability with a number of other long distance carriers to provide an extremely reliable means of access to its primary fax service processing centers in the United States. This multi-carrier interconnection has also served as the primary delivery vehicle for FaxSav’s international and domestic fax traffic.

In 1995, FaxSav embarked on a program to expand its network access and delivery capabilities through the use of the Internet. Through this unique use of the Internet, FaxSav has been able to reduce the underlying cost of fax delivery to International destinations and thereby reduce its pricing to its customers, versus the cost of fax calls delivered by conventional telephonic means. Through the use of its proprietary facility management systems and protocols, FaxSav has been able to maintain the quality, integrity and inherent security of the ubiquitous telephonic network, while embodying the delivery cost saving elements of the Internet in its pricing structure.

Primary Fax Processing Center Architecture

FaxSav employs a fully redundant/fault tolerant hardware architecture scheme in each of the primary systems employed at each super node:

• Summa - 4 Switches (Direct Connect Fax Processing).
• Multi-Node Intel based Pentium-Pro UNIX Fax Processors (Assured Fax Processing Servers).
• Sun SPARC, Ultra-SPARC and Enterprise 4000 Servers (Email to Fax Processing).

All systems are interconnected, within each processing site, through the use of an intranet environment utilizing standard Cisco routers and Livingston Portmaster hardware. Likewise, all elements of the intranet environment are replicated to insure the highest degree of reliability. Each of these Primary Processing Centers has been configured and sized so that in the event of a catastrophic failure at either site, the companion site is capable of automatically accomplishing a network load transfer to the functioning site and supporting 80% of current peak hour traffic. No such failure has occurred since the implementation of this architecture in 1995, although periodic capability tests of the network and procedures verify this fall-back capability.

Remote Fax Processor Node Architecture (Overseas Locations)

Approximately eight additional countries are currently planned for implementation during 1998.

FaxSav has employed the same Network tele-housing and hardware architecture standards in the deployment of its remote processors as in its Primary Processing Centers:

• Proven industrial grade, rack-mounted Pentium PC's by Diversified Technologies,
• Brooktrout fax boards equaling at least 64 ports per node,
• Cisco routers,
• Livingston Portmaster hardware and
• Kingston removable hard drive modules.

The Remote Processing Center configuration does not currently include a Summa - 4 direct connect telephone switch because connection between the Primary Processing Centers and the Remote Processors is via Internet based facilities. However, all node facilities include a separate bank of modems dedicated to telephony fax transmission should internode data transfer be unable to meet requirements as a result of high peaks of Internet traffic or complete outages.

Facility Architecture

• ATT
• LCI
• Worldcom
• Teleglobe
• MCI
• Telstra (Australia)

FaxSav employs a similar multi-provider philosophy in its Internet based facilities. For all Internet based TCP/IP connections between FaxSav’s US and overseas locations, at least two recognized Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) are utilized at each location. Specific interconnection bandwidth between each of FaxSav’s operating sites and its respective supporting ISP’s varies dependent on traffic loading conditions. It is FaxSav’s plan to implement a minimum of at least one (1) T-1/E-1 to each of at least two independent ISP’s at each location. This configuration currently exists between all US and most overseas locations.

Network Security (Internet)

Network Access

Since 1989, access to the FaxSav Network was available only through the patented FaxSav connector. In this configuration, a customer would simply attach the connector between his fax machine and the telephone jack; note that the connector works not only with direct POTS lines but with PBX and Centrex-based lines as well. The connector, in turn, was programmable directly from FaxSav headquarters. Based on the customer's predetermined least-cost needs, the connector intercepted fax calls that were intended for specific, often international, locations and routed them to the FaxSav Network. The fax sender did nothing other than what he already knew: put the paper in the fax machine and dial the destination number.

In 1996, FaxSav connected its programmable switches, controlled by Unix operating systems, to the Internet. Not content with merely offering a ubiquitous, international fax-to-fax service, FaxSav has gone a step beyond in inaugurating the FaxSav for Internet suite of services. This suite enables users to effortlessly send formatted and unformatted documents from any TCP/IP equipped computer to any international destination with unparalleled ease of use and accessibility:

• FaxLauncher: - software for faxing formatted documents from PCs
• FaxMailer: a capability of sending email messages to fax machines
• FaxScan: software for using a TWAIN-compliant scanner to fax paper documents
• FaxProxy: a capability of fax-enabling Web sites
• ServerLink: application programming interface for least-cost routing from a fax server or fax-enabled application
• FaxCourier: a capability for routing a fax message to the recipient’s email address

In a standard analog telecommunications call, the incoming scanned data bits are converted at the fax machine into standard fax modulated frequencies which are then delivered to the Unix-controlled switch. The switch then reroutes the tones to the destination fax machines over the best route. In the case of a data file arriving at the FaxSav switch from the Internet, FaxSav extracts key information that came with the file, including the sender's and destination's identity, and converts the basic data file into the modulated frequencies before sending them to the destination fax machine.

Node-to-Node Data Transfer

The following example illustrates the robustness of FaxSav’s multiple routing options when delivery a fax from Tokyo to London, or even Botswana.

(A) FaxSav can choose the least-cost route and send the fax from the FaxSav Tokyo node over the Internet to the London node for local delivery.

(B) Should the fax be undeliverable via the Internet, FaxSav can deliver the fax using an alternate telecommunications delivery route from Tokyo to the US node. From the US node, FaxSav can choose between delivering the fax to the London node via the Internet or directly to the destination fax machine via telephony. All nodes also have the capability of sending the fax directly to the final destination over traditional telephone lines. Beneficial to it’s partners, FaxSav incurs the cost of alternate routing to the destination fax machine when necessary.

(C) Because FaxSav also has a telephony based network, it is not limited to delivering faxes only to countries where it has nodes; FaxSav can deliver faxes to any destination in the world.

In Conclusion