Screening for Fax Calls with Panther?

Peter Brodsky asks: "Panther advertises faxing as one of its cool, new features. If you're like me, and you have one land line, which you use for DSL and voice, you don't want to hook up a fax machine that will answer after X rings, because if after X rings it picks up and starts beeeep, beeep, bleeeeping at you, you cut yourself off from voice mail... which is programmed to pick up after Y rings. Is there a way to make your Panther box 'screen' for fax calls before it picks up?"

It, as always, depends.

[stienman]

If by 'Voice mail' you mean, "My phone company's voice mail service" then no, there is NO way for ANY home connected device to see if there's a fax machine on the other end of the line without actually answering the call - you have to use distinctive ring, or a seperate line.

If by 'Voice mail' you mean 'Answering machine on the same line' then any intelligent faxing application will listen to the line after it's been answered for the telltale beeps and take over if necessary. This means that if you or voice mail picks up, the fax machine should recognize the beeps. The answering machine may or may not record the conversation depending on how smart it is.

Your best bet is to use distinctive ring, OR use panther as your answering machine/fax machine, and it should take care of all of it for you.

-Adam