T 5.35 Overload due to incoming fax transmissions

An overload due to incoming fax transmissions may occur if the number of available fax connections or telecommunication lines and/or channels is insufficient. Moreover, a fax connection may be blocked deliberately by

• continuously sending large faxes (possibly with meaningless content) or
• deliberately sending faxes until the paper supply of the fax machine and the buffer memory are exhausted.

A fax server may also be overloaded if faxes are sent until the available space on the hard disk is exhausted. However, it must be observed that one DIN A4 fax page consumes approx. 70 kB. Given the hard disk capacities usual today, a very large number of fax transmissions of this kind would have to be received. Furthermore, it must be taken into consideration that only a limited number of lines and/or channels are available and that every fax transmission requires time for processing the fax protocol. On that note, the fax server may only be overloaded if the selected hard disk was too small or if fax transmissions are archived on the fax server.

As opposed to traditional fax machines, overloading a fax server due to outgoing fax transmissions is absolutely possible. For example, a very large number of serial fax transmissions may completely utilise a fax server and prevent the fax machine from receiving any further fax transmissions.