Net Tech Term: FoIP

[Keefe]

(pronounced as separate letters) Short for fax over Internet Protocol, the technology that enables the internetworking of fax machines with a packet-based network. Using FoIP, a fax is transmitted via the Internet rather than the traditional method of sending faxes via the telephone line. Using FoIP, the digital data from the fax machine is separated into packets for transmission (as opposed to the traditional method of converting the fax data into analog to be sent over the PSTN). The digital data requires less bandwidth than the analog data, so FoIP is more efficient than analog faxing.