?I live in LLera de Canales, a village about an hour's drive from
Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Some faxes from the US have not
gotten to me and some have.  My credit union in Corpus Christi, Tx,
had their fax to me in Mexico returned.  They did not know why. 
Recently, while I've been in the US a few months, friends have tried
several times unsuccessfully to fax me from Llera to Corpus Christi,
Texas.  What might be the most likely problems?

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Request for Question Clarification by alienintelligence-ga on 03 Aug 2002 19:11 PDT

hi nona75

I tried to answer you other
question regarding the Brother
fax machine. I had to give up
before i went crazy.
[ https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=50052 ]

The thing that drove me the 
most insane was the fact that
everyone mentioned faxing between
the US and Mexico, or US and abroad
or Mexico and abroad, but no one
ever mentioned problems. If I did
see any problems associated with
faxing, they were based on just a
few things.

- Line noise
- Connection quality (differs from
  line noise by origin)
- Fax compatibility

The brother fax machine you mentioned
on the other question is listed as
ITU-T Group 3 compatible. This designation
reads, at least in my head, to mean
that the fax machine is compatible 
with any other fax machine over a 
standard phone circuit regardless of
origin. It even lists North America
as one standard.

[ http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/dir-015/_2138.htm ]  


My question for you is this. Have these
individuals tried manual faxing when the
automatic methods don't work? Have they
tried just calling the fax number from
a regular phone to see if it is being
picked up? Have any of these people saved
error logs of the transmissions? (Those
go a LONG way to diagnosing problems)


I hope we can solve these 2 questions for
you. I am interested as well in the final
answer. If no one has produced an answer
by Monday, I will start placing calls and
inquiring with telecommunications people
about the answer.


thanks for your question
-AI

---

Clarification of Question by nona75-ga on 03 Aug 2002 20:53 PDT

Hi. I don 't think I'm going to come up with much help in giving
information to help diagnose my previous faxing problems.  I've had
very little experience and don't think I can reconstruct. You
mentioned "line noise", "fax compatibility (and something else I
forget).  I don't understand much technologically. If a piece of paper
is coming out of the receiving end, how would "line noise" manifest
itself? As for "fax compatibility", what exactly is that?  Do some fax
machines have trouble communicating with other fax machines regardless
of country of origin? If you found nothing obvious as a faxing problem
between Mex.& the US, let's consider that question answered and
concentrate on the availability, price, and servicing in Mexico, and
if the machine bought in the US should work in Mexico.  Then I can
decide where to purchase and if to purchase.  I think Google Answers
is a great idea!  Talk about going crazy trying to dig up this
information.  The average Neanderthal housewife knew more about
computers than I do.  I'm glad you're there.

Just to check -- they are dialing 011, then the country code 52 before
the number, right? Up until 1991, you could call Mexico with just a 1
and an area code, but now you have to call as if you were calling
overseas. Also, I assume you remembered to say that they should leave
off the "01" or "02" or whatever at the beginning of a Mexican
long-distance number. For example, if someone in el DF calls you by
dialing 02-834-555-1234, an American would call you by dialing
011-52-834-555-1234.

No, I don't think you or your bank is stupid, but there's a reason
troubleshooting guides always tell you to make sure the unit is
plugged in before trying more-difficult solutions.