Intelligent Fax Retransmission System and Method

摘要

Described herein is a fax processing system for the improvement of efficiency and reliability of fax transmissions over any communications network, specifically for retransmitting an incomplete transmission. Fax images are encoded with an embedded digital bit signal by a fax software program on the originating fax that indicates the number of pages in the document where such bit signal is recognized by fax software at a fax service for the purpose of monitoring the page count of the transmission, and in the case of a failed transmission, using the embedded digital data to notify the recipient that more pages will be transmitted, and further transmitting the remaining pages on the next facsimile phone call.

主权项

1. A facsimile system for the intelligent retransmission of incomplete facsimile transmissions comprising:
a software encoder program on computer readable medium comprising the capability to encode non-facsimile-communication-protocol/non-facsimile-image digital data bits in the facsimile image data, the digital data bits comprising one or more of the following: the number of pages in the facsimile image data, a unique identifier of the facsimile image data, a unique identifier of the software encoder program, the date and time of the facsimile transmission; a software decoder program on computer readable medium capable of: authenticating the non-facsimile-communication-protocol/non-facsimile-image digital data bits in the facsimile image data sent from the software encoder program; the software decoder program further informing the software encoder program of the number of pages of a facsimile image received; the software encoder program further capable of authenticating the number of pages of a facsimile image that were successfully transmitted, and in the case of an incomplete facsimile transmission, initiating a retransmission of the facsimile image data commencing with the first page that was not successfully transmitted to the receiving destination.