Internet Faxing, Not Just a Passing Fad

By Rob Jacobs

Internet faxing services have been on the rise for quite a while, but only over the past few years have they really been adopted more by the mainstream. The reasons for this are obvious; internet faxing services let you access your faxes anywhere in the world where you can get an internet connection; whether it's via email or simply viewed on the web. With the rise of telecommuting, more mobile, internet-based services like this that add a ton of convenience were only bound to get more popular.

And of course let's not forget costs. Toner and paper, and long distance fax charges, especially at the enterprise level, are extremely expensive, and in offices with numerous people faxing out and receiving documents constantly, the use of actual fax machines has become more impractical than anything else; internet faxing presents one of the greatest opportunities of all time for businesses and individuals to cut costs. And most people love the added benefit of getting rid of that clunky old fax machine and freeing up the desk or table space. Internet faxing services come in a few different varieties, and there are a number out there; so it's definitely worth checking a few out if this is a direction you want to go. Some, like MyFax and eFax, have very low flat monthly fees which include hundreds (some unlimited) of received pages.

Others, like extreme Fax, have tiered plans, all the way up to bulk rates, and support fax-broadcasting as well. Some also are web-based only, some send your faxes straight to your email in-box, and some do both. Still there are internet faxing services which work through downloaded software. Another reason internet faxing has really started catching on faster is these services are increasingly being made to fit with enterprise-level setups, like Outlook and other email servers. In many companies which adopt MyFax, for instance, any employee can view a network folder in his/her Outlook which contains every fax which has come in for the day. Some folders can have separate numbers, to retain privacy and confidentiality. The support of several document types has also no doubt been a another huge added benefit of internet fax services. At one point it was only Adobe PDF. Now we're starting to see TARGA, Microsoft Word, as well as several vector image based formats being supported by more the services.

This basically means internet faxing is now open to even more people who may not have been able to take advantage before, because of weird file formats and support in their offices. For the cost savings, portability: easy access anywhere you go, not to mention being able to free up office space by ditching old fashioned fax machines, you really can't go wrong with internet faxing services. And as many as there are out there; there's a service that's the right fit for any application.

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