Is it Worth Using an Online Fax Service?

The fax is not obsolete: it has simply evolved. Today, rather than use a traditional analogue system, with a fax machine tied to a phone line, we can now send faxes online. This proves to be a very popular method of information transfer amongst businesses. However, it can seem a little pointless when you consider that much information can be send via other means, such as FTP or email. So, is it worth sending faxes via the internet? We think it is, and below, we will explain why.

Traditional Fax vs. Online Fax

Some people just prefer to use fax. For these people the argument may be whether to move the fax online, or stick with the traditional machine and phone line. We believe that it makes more sense to send a fax online. This is because the process is much easier, faster, and more efficient. There is no need to print anything out, or to move from where you are, you simply load it up to your email, write the relevant address, and hit send. Alternatively, you can choose to purchase a Fax API, which is a piece of software that you allow you to customise your faxing preferences. Fax API can be made bespoke, so that it matches your exact requirements. Either way, it is much easier to send a fax using the internet than it is to send a fax using a traditional fax machine.

With a traditional fax machine you feed a piece of paper with the information you need, the machine takes a photocopy, converts it into an analogue format, then sends it down the telephone. This means that the only information that you can send via traditional fax machine is in paper form. That is limited. However, with an online fax you can send a variety of different formats, including Word, Tiff, PDF, and Gif. Therefore, there is much more flexibility when sending a fax online.

Another way in which it an online fax has an advantage is in mobility. With a traditional fax machine, you are constrained to where the machine actually is. You cannot send faxes on the fly, you have to send them as and when you are at a machine. If you send a fax online, though, you have much more mobility. You can send a fax from wherever you have an internet connection. So you could be on a ferry in the middle of the Atlantic, and as long as you have an internet connection, you can send your fax. Furthermore, you can receive a fax anywhere too, because online faxes allow you to send and receive fax. This means that fi the other person has a fax machine and they want to send you a fax, you do not have to have a fax machine to receive a fax either.

Can’t Find a Fax Machine? We Know What to Do

Many of you may have assumed that the fax is an obsolete form of communication. No one uses fax nowadays, do they? Well, yes, there are many companies that continue to use fax. Below, we are going to consider the humble fax and take a look at the way in which it has evolved in recent years.

What Happened to the Fax?

Most of you probably haven’t heard about faxes in a long time. They seemed to go out of fashion in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but why was this? The main reason was that the internet largely created a situation where the fax was no longer needed. We all (well most of us) moved our information transfer online. We find it easier to send emails, rather than faxes, and most people prefer email, or other forms of delivery, such as FTP.

Why Do People Use Fax?

Ok, so given that most people prefer the internet to the old telephone systems when it comes to sending information, why does the fax continue to exist at all?

There are several reasons for this:

1.       Some of the larger companies are huge, and to swap systems away from their networked fax machines could cost those millions of pounds. In some respects it may be worth it, it is certainly more convenience. However, the amount of money spent on a new system is often more than the amount of money saved by changing systems. These larger companies are going to wait until their systems really stop working before they move to fax over IP.

2.       Some businesses believe that it is safer to send information via fax, rather than sending fax over IP. This is because it is possible to hack into computer systems much more easily that it is to intercept a telephone line. Not sure, but we believe that you can only ‘listen’ on a telephone line, and not intercept and redirect. The only security issue is that they may dial a wrong number, or it may be picked up by the wrong person at the other end. With companies that trust each other though, these issues are unlikely to occur when sending fax, hence the reason for their continued loyalty to fax.

There are definite problems with fax though. One of the biggest problems is mobility and access. For example, imagine that the company you work for requires that you send fax. You want to work from home today, so what do you do? Do you buy a machine that you can use at home? Well, what if you don’t want to work at home, but at the local café? What do you do then? This is where internet faxing comes in handy. You can access it from any ware than you can get an internet connexion. As long as you can get online, you’re good to go. This means that you can work from anywhere. You don’t have to buy expensive equipment, instead you have two choices:

1.       You can sign up to an email to fax service

2.       You can buy a fax modem for your laptop

In conclusion, when you need to send a fax, but you don’t have a fax machine, you can just send a fax online.

What does it mean to ‘Fax Online’?

If you are reading this article then you, like many people, are confused about the term internet fax (- or email to fax; fax to email; online fax; cloud fax. All of which are interchangeable terms). Most people think of the word fax and imagine a fax machine attached to a phone line that sends and receives analogue information, but this is the definition of the traditional fax. Today, the fax has evolved, and many businesses and individuals now send fax online, using a fax server – the fax server being located on their network, or being owned by a third party fax provider. Below, we are going to take a closer look at the internet fax, and by the time, you get to the end of the article you will have a much better understanding of what it is.

To understand the process of sending a fax online, we have to go back in time and explain the original fax:

In the past, we used fax machines, which were like large printers that had the capacity to change visual information (i.e. the information on a bit of paper that was fed to the machine) into analogue data. This analogue data was then send down the telephone line, where it was picked up by another fax machine, which then converted the information back into a visual form, which the fax machine then printed out. Just a side note quickly, we’re using the past tense here, but many businesses and individuals continue to use fax machines, so they are not completely dead and this is why online service allow you to send email to fax machine, or fax machine to email. The traditional fax is still around, it is just less popular.

Today, the email to fax and the pure online fax work different from the above. Now, we use a fax server that is linked to our computer and our computer network if we have one. Instead of converting the information in analogue form, the server converts it into digital form, so that we can send it via the broadband line. The server also has the capacity to convert the digital information to fax. This means that it deals in both analogue and digital, and hence the reason that it can be opened with email, as well as received/sent by fax machine.

Because it is easier than buying a separate piece of software, most people and businesses, use their emails to send and receive fax. All they do is type a special address in the recipients address section of the email. The email is sent to that special address, which is actually the fax server, which then does what it needs to do by converting the information into the appropriate form, and then sending this to the recipient. There is an extra step involved than when sending email, but as the sender, you do not undertake this extra step yourself, your service provider or your server does it for you.

We hope that you have learned a little bit more about internet faxing. If you would like to learn more about sending faxes online, including information about fax server, then please visit our website.

How Important is It to Send Faxes Securely?

Traditional fax has been largely replaced by internet faxing. However, while quicker and more efficient, the internet fax runs into a problem that was never an issue with traditional fax: ensuring the data is not intercepted by a third party during delivery. Sure, there were security issues with traditional faxes, for example, you could never guarantee that the person who picked the fax off the machine at the other end was the person intended as the recipient. It was also possible to intercept faxes in the past, but you needed specialist equipment, which as far as we know, was only available to the government.

Today, though, we have to worry about cyber criminals getting hold of confidential information that we send by fax. Sometimes these cyber criminals may be interested in committing fraud or theft, other times they may be interested in business-to-business espionage, you just never know, and it is definitely better to be safe than sorry.

Below, we are going to take a close look at the importance of sending fax in a secure manner:

The key factor in ensuring security when sending a fax is that people may get hold of valuable information and use it to commit crimes in your name, or to find out information that they can blackmail you with, or find out things that you are too embarrassed to tell other people (like the results of a gynaecological examination). In short, there are a whole host of reasons why it is important to ensure security. In reference to the title of the article, then, yes, it is very important to send faxes securely.

Now, let us move on to discuss the basics of sending a secure fax:

One of the first things that you should do is to check your own system for virus, malware, and various other security issues. You should have a high quality anti-virus protection and you will need to run a full scan. If you don’t do this, you could accidently send correspondents an infection, and they won’t be very happy – imagine if you send a Trojan horse along with your CV, you probably won’t be getting the job!

When sending a fax to someone that you do not know that well, only send the information that they need. Never elaborate or send anything too personal if you do not have to. Needless to say you should make sure that the recipient is a bone fide business or a genuine person (- as opposed to a fraudster) before you send them anything at all.

Next, you have to protect yourself against human error. Make sure that you check, and then check again, the number that you have dialled. Many times a fax has ended up in the wrong place because of a wrong number. Sure, most of the time its fine and no one is any the wiser, but sometimes it has gone wrong.

There are also a number of follow up procedures that you should adopt:

·         Delivery Report: most internet fax providers will send a delivery report

·         Page Number: make sure that the number of pages you intended to send were sent.

·         Telephone: sometimes it is appropriate to telephone the recipient to make sure that they have received the fax.

We hope that you have enjoyed this article. If you would like to learn more about secure fax, then please visit Interfax.net

How To Compare Email To Fax Providers

Internet faxing is one of the latest technology trends of modern businesses. Many companies continue to use fax, but the old system is rather slow and sluggish. Internet faxing allows us to send fax via our computers, using a fax server, which is located in a single computer, located in the local network, or located on the cloud (- the internet). It is proving incredibly popular because it is so efficient in comparison to traditional fax. You may wonder why people are using faxes at all, given that emails work much better, but the reason is that some of the larger companies have yet to update their systems – it is too costly – but we still need to communicate with them. Furthermore, many businesses insist that faxing is much more safe and secure in comparison to email.

Given that the internet faxing (-or cloud fax, email fax, or internet fax) is so popular, you will find it unsurprising that many companies are now offering a cloud fax service. This is good news for the consumer in some respects:

1.       The market is more competitive and this drives down prices

2.       The technology will continue to improve and improve as companies vie for your custom

There is also a key problem:

·         How do you ensure that you have chosen the right internet fax provider?

We are going to consider this question further. There are several things that you should think about when choosing your internet fax provider. By following the advice we outline below, you will help to keep faxes safe and secure, while saving money on your service.

How to Choose an Internet Fax Provider

You need to ensure a number of key things when selecting your provider:

1.       Do they destroy the fax after they send it? You need to ensure that your data is protected. The provider must not retain copies of the fax. They should be governed by the relevant rules of the country from which you are sending the fax, so in the UK, this would be the Data Protection Act and various other pieces of legislation aimed at the management of data. 

2.       What are their costs? You will find that different providers offer different levels of service. Make sure that you spend some time comparing the market. 

3.       Are they able to manage the number of faxes that you need to send? Some of you will be sending thousands of faxes, so you need to be sure that the company you choose can handle this. Conversely, some services may require that you send a minimum of 100, but this may be too many for your needs. Make sure that they offer the package you need. You can contact them by phone just to see if there is any negotiation on the packages you see online – especially if you will be sending a lot of fax. 

4.       Do they have good security management? As with point two above, you need to make sure that your information is safe, and this includes that it is safe from third party hackers, and the like. Make sure that they offer encryption and various other types of security.

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Why Is Businesses Choosing To Send Faxes Online, Rather Than Using A Dedicated Fax Machine?

You may have noticed a recent trend that has arrived online: the online fax. Sending faxes via the internet, rather than via the traditional analogue (phone) lines has become the latest craze in business. Is this just a passing phase? Or, does the internet fax have something valuable to offer? We are going to explore these questions below.

Firstly, we must state that we are firmly in favor of internet faxing, so we will mostly be focusing on the benefits of such a system. There are very few down sides and this is largely because email faxing is simply an evolved method of faxing that has improved on its predecessor. If traditional faxes were that much better than email faxes, then they would never have become obsolete.Ok, so let us move on to discuss the advantages of the online fax :

Cost

Sending faxes via email is much more cost effective than sending faxes in the traditional manner. There are numerous savings to be made, which include:

1.       There is no need to purchase expensive fax machines and equipment. This also means that there is no maintenance on such machines, which considering the fax forms part of IT, can be very expensive. 

2.       There is no need to spend money on a dedicated phone line, or to pay for each call. Now, you could argue that in the past, some businesses did not have a dedicated line, but used their main telephone line as a fax machine also, and so they are not saving money. However, they still would have had to pay the fax to be sent, which in itself can mount in cost. 

3.       There is no need to print the fax, so this will save money on paper and toner ink. You can still print your faxes off if you change to internet faxing, but you  do not have to, so you do have the option of saving money in this respect.

Time

Sending faxes via the internet saves a lot of time. Again, there are a few ways in which they save time:

1.       There is no need to wait for the fax machine to dial the number and wait for the recipient’s machine to pick up and accept the fax. From dialling the number to getting the ‘fax sent’ reply, can take up to three minutes, but when the recipient’s fax machine is already receiving a fax, you get the engaged dial tone, and you then have to resend the fax. It can take a long time just to send one fax if you are sending the fax to a company that receives many faxes. With online faxing, you will not have this problem. You can allow the software/third-party to do this for you. Different providers will have different systems, but most will tell you when the fax has been received by the recipient. 

2.       You can send multiple faxes at a time. In the past, the best-case scenario would be that the recipients fax machine picked up the fax straightaway, so it would take 30 seconds to send a fax. If you had ten faxes to send it would take five minutes, and that’s best-case scenario. With internet fax, though, you can send a very large number of fax at the same time. Again, the exact number of faxes that you can send at once varies between providers, but all will allow you to send multiple faxes.

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How Email To Fax Services Are Saving Companies Money

The fax is one of the oldest means of communication for modern day businesses, and it is on its way to oblivion; to join the ranks of things like microfiche and analogue signals. For now, though, they are still holding on. However, their form is changing somewhat, and today, it is possible to send faxes via the internet. Below, we are going to consider why it makes financial sense for businesses to adopt secure fax online, rather than sticking to the traditional fax machines and telephone lines.

What are the Advantages of Using Internet Faxing as a Business?

There are many advantages conferred by using internet fax, some of which are financial, some of which are more social. Here is a list of the most significant advantages, there are more:

·         It reduces the impact on the environment. There is no need to use paper when sending or receiving a fax by email. The person with the recipient/sender fax machine will still require paper, but those that use their email will not. It also helps to reduce the environmental impact of using ink. Toner ink is particularly damaging to the environment because a lot of it is carcinogenic, this can lead to widespread problems within nature. Clearly, the less we use the ink and the paper, the better it is for the environment.

·         Some companies will only accept fax, and so the advantage of using fax is that you are able to communicate with these companies much more easily. This is a double edge sword, and those companies should really be updating their systems. However, many have not done this because they: 

a.       Fear that other systems are less secure than fax

b.      Are too large and a new system is simply too expensive to implement

·         It is cheaper to send a fax by email than it is to send a fax using a traditional fax machines. This is because traditional faxes use the phone line, and this often meant having a separate, dedicated, fax line. Today, though, with secure fax online, we can use our email software, which in turn uses our broadband line. As most businesses already have a broadband line, there is no added expense. Furthermore, with broadband a business will pay for the package, and that is all the cost to send a fax (if they have a fax server, otherwise there are minimal costs in using a third party server). When faxes were sent via the phone line, businesses had to pay for each fax the same way that they would have to pay for each call. This could be very expensive, but now that we have the capacity to fax online, we no longer have the expense as we did in the past.

In conclusion, there are three main ways in which companies make savings when sending fax: they reduce their impact on the environment, they maintain their relationships with companies that only communicate with fax, and they save money.

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