Fax success rate!

Maybe your modem is timing out very fast? Try this - go to
Start-Control Panel-Phone and Modem options. Select the
Modems tab and click on the Properties button. Click on
the Advanced tab and then click on the "Change Default
Preferences" button. Try changing the timeout in
the "Cancel the call if not connected within _____ secs"
field to a higher value.

-----Original Message-----
We have a requirement to send out a couple of hundred
faxes a day to our clients, each with a different page of
data. I set up the fax services under Win XP Pro, with
Send enabled, Rcv disabled, and tested it - it works
fine. I wrote a program that created 206 faxes with the
individual faxes and sent them to the fax console - they
all showed up in the outbox perfectly. Right away the
fax monitor popped up and showed the modem dialing and
sending faxes.

The problem is that only 43 faxes (20%) were sent
successfully even after 2 retries (29, 12, & 2 in each
try taking 4 hours each). The majority of the
unsuccessful attempts were "No Answer" although there
were a few "Busy" status ones. Why is the success rate
so small? Is there any setting (such as number of rings
to wait before deciding No Answer) that can be checked on
a send? The only settings I can find is number of
retries and delay. An older DOS program being used for
the same application to the same fax numbers was
providing 80 to 90% success rate on a daily basis but we
wish to retire the machine.

I have tried this on 2 different computers with different
fax modems with the same result. I ran another test of 7
faxes of which 2 went through successfully after 4
attempts with 5 No Answers. The 5 failed faxes, when
printed and faxed manually through a fax machine to the
same fax numbers all made it through on the first
attempt. What gives? Is there something somewhere that
I am missing?

Ash

.