Patent ID: 8582557

Claim:
A device comprising: a packet-switched network interface to receive packetized fax relay data from a packet-switched network, the packetized fax relay data associated with facsimile data from a facsimile machine implementing a real time relay fax protocol; a circuit-switch network interface to receive signaling from a remote networking device over a circuit-switched network, where the signaling is configured to indicate that the remote networking device is configured to receive packetized fax relay data in a tunnel through the circuit-switched network; a tunneling mechanism to initiate the tunnel through the circuit-switched network in response to the signaling from the remote networking device, where the circuit-switch network interface is configured to transmit the packetized fax relay data to the remote networking device in the tunnel through the circuit-switched network; a tunneling memory to store an identifier associated with the remote networking device and a configuration associated with the tunnel and the identifier; and a signaling unit to re-initiate the tunnel with the remote networking device in response to a subsequent communication with the remote networking device, the re-initiation by the tunneling mechanism by retrieval of the configuration associated with the tunnel from the tunneling memory based on the identifier of the remote networking device.