Does faxing work with ZTE Wireless home phone adapters?

Many wireless carriers in the United States and Canada (AT&T, Consumer Cellular, Telus, Fido, Rogers, Koodo etc.)  are now offering a wireless home phone service that can connect your existing home telephone to the carriers cellular network. The wireless home phone service is sold as an alternative to the traditional land-line and your current land-line telephone number can be transferred to the Wireless home phone service.

Many of these hardware devices are manufactured by ZTE (Models WF721, WF720 etc.) are provided by the wireless carrier for a nominal up-front cost and a monthly service fee.  The wireless adapters come with an adjustable external antenna and they must be installed in a location where cellular service is available.  Therefore, it does not work well when installed in basements or in areas where normal cell service is intermittent. The adapter also has a battery backup, so it can continue to be used during a power failure with most desktop phones that don’t require an additional power source.

A fax modem or fax machine can be connected to one of the standard telephone RJ-11 jacks (usually labelled LINE 1 or LINE 2) on the Wireless Phone adapter, but faxing with the wireless home phone service is not guaranteed to work.  Many of these cellular carriers do not support fax or alarm system monitoring. Check with your specific cellular carrier or Users Guide to verify compatibility.

Here are some suggestions on configuring the FaxTalk fax software to send and receive faxes using the Wireless Home Phone Adapter

Lower your fax speed in FaxTalk

Adjusting the speed can help when having difficulties sending or receiving faxes. To change the default fax speed settings in FaxTalk:

1. Open the FaxTalk program.
2. Click on the Tools menu and select the Options command. The FaxTalk Settings application will open.
3. Click on the Modem selection in the list to display the Modem configuration page.
4. Select the modem from the list and click the Properties button.
5. On the Modem Settings dialog click the Fax tab.
6. On the Fax tab under the Modem speed settings, select 9600 from both the Fax transmission speed and Fax receive speed dropdown lists.
7. Click OK to save the change and close the Modem Settings dialog.
8. Click OK to close the FaxTalk Settings application.

Adjusting (ECM) Error Correction Mode in FaxTalk

Error Correction Mode (ECM) can improve fax transmission quality by verifying the data received is the same as the data sent. This may help in cases where VOIP connections result in some minor data packet loss. However, when there are many errors and retries due to line noise or packet loss/jitter, faxes will usually fail completely. To enable or disable Error Correction Mode (ECM) support in FaxTalk:

1. From FaxTalk, click on the Tools menu, and click Options.
2. In the configuration list on the left, click Modem.
3. On the Modem configuration page, click Properties.
4. On the Fax tab check Enable Error Correction Mode (ECM) support, uncheck to disable..
5. Click OK to close the Modem Settings dialog.
6. Click OK to save the changes and close FaxTalk Settings.

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