The SIP Forum and the i3 Forum announced a new testing program for Fax-over-Internet-Protocol services, aimed at identifying and qualifying transmission impairments and interoperability challenges that have arisen in IP-based networks as the T.38 protocol has become more widely deployed across carrier and enterprise network topologies. The first-of-its-kind testing program, which will take place from September through December 2010, will bring together a host of international communications carriers from North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Middle East to examine global FoIP communications. T.38 is the international standard that supports the use of IP networks to transport real-time faxes.

The testing program will log fax calls between carriers, creating a large database of detailed information about how IP fax calls are handled amongst the program participants. More than a dozen carriers on four continents have signed up to participate in the test and the SIP Forum and i3 Forum will be accepting new participants well into the fourth quarter of 2010.

The SIP Forum’s FoIP Task Group and members of the i3 Forum will conduct a thorough analysis of the data from the tests in early 2011, and resulting recommendations regarding improvements to the current T.38 specification will be made to the appropriate standards bodies, including the ITU-T and International Engineering Task Group.

The testing is also the first major initiative undertaken by the SIP Forum/i3 Forum Partnership launched earlier this year.

For more information about the work of the SIP Forum’s FoIP Task Group, and to view or download copies of published documentation related to the ongoing work on FoIP, visit www.sipforum.org/content/view/310/252/ or http://www.i3forum.org/library.