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.