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- dmurray14, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30What rock have you been under? Yes. Almost every corporation on the face of the earth sends faxes on a daily basis. It's old technology, but it works, so it's used. People still use the telephone too, do you believe it?
- cheez, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27I think telegram over IP would be even better
- conan359, on 10/12/2007, -9/+31People still send faxes?
- monkeycat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20The upside of a fax is that it allows you to sender and receiver to both have hard copies of the document without a computer. When you think about it, scanning, attaching, emailing, downloading, and printing is a LOT slower than faxing if all you need to do is send a copy of a document to someone.
- mentor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Isn't Fax over IP known as email?
- jim99, on 10/12/2007, -7/+19It alearedy exists, it's called email
- Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12A fax machine is a scanner that sends the scanned image over an analog phone line to a receiving fax machine device. Why not just scan and email an image attachment? Why are we still using fax machines at all?
- Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Trention: All a fax is is a scanned document printed out. Example: I was working with my insurance company on a car accident claim. She asked me (via email) for some documentation, saying I should fax it. I scanned it and emailed it to her. Her reply: "This is good, but could you send me hardcopies?" I suggested that she just print out the attachments I had sent, as those would be identical to anything I would send by fax - a scanned image printed on paper.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Fax Over IP? We allready got that, its called EMAIL!!
- Trention, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Except email isn't always counted as official for things like signing contracts and the like, whereas faxes are.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@monkeycat
The real problem is when people print, then fax, then scan (this happens all too often). They really need to just email the original doc to the other guy.
But fax over ip works well when you don't have a fax machine, but the other guy is too antiquated to send you an email. Just have your Cisco 3600 convert the fax to an email and you're set. - PsychoticCarp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Most copiers can now both fax and scan to email, scan to email is much simpler and quicker.
- Fengpost, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Fax is a time tested techology with legal root. A faxed signed document is as good as the original one in court. Email has not reach that status.
- technique, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Snakes over mother f***in IP, that's what!
- tutivlahos, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Yeah, i still dont believe how fax still exists, poor quality, slow.
- billtaylor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Business grade versions of those copiers are very expensive and most corporations never look at upgrading copier machines.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The Electronic Signatures act was signed into law on June 30, 2000 and has been in effect since since October 1, 2000. It basically makes signatures in electronic form exactly as legally valid as those in non-electronic form.
It does not specify what a signature is, mind you, but this argument that "faxes are legal while email documents are not" holds no water whatsoever. - Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Okay, so someone should create a fax-machine-esque device that:
Connects to an IP network instead of an analog phone line
Scans to PDF
Requests email address from user
Emails PDF to email address entered
I know that many big multifunction copiers will do this, but it should be fairly simple to make a cheap device that does *only* that. Maybe it could also receive emails with PDF attachments like "faxes" at an email address and print them out. - Rikkochet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Well, think about this:
I get faxes roughly twice a month with prescription information for some patient wanting something from the Safeway pharmacy. We keep telling them but they continue to misdial the fax machine and fax us people's sensitive information.
I'm a hair's breadth from just phoning the people who are getting the prescription filled and letting THEM talk to their pharmacy about it.
This has quite honestly gone on for over a year and we've talked to the pharmacy a half dozen times about it.
My point being that email is vulnerable to human sneakiness. Faxes are vulnerable to human stupidity. - psychicfriend, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Wow! Now Ted Stevens can have his assistant fax him his internets using the tubes. Maybe this will make the internets more like a big truck!!!
- Tweekster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4If it aint broke done fix it?
who said fax machines are not...
I think they are horribly broken, depreciated by far better methods about a decade ago, yet that hideous technology continues on. - McMultiverse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Because the people who insist on using fax are stuck in an late 80s/early 90s time warp. Everyone here knows how to use a ***** FTP and ***** e-mail. The whole point is that Grandma Sally's Document Service in *****, Wyoming doesn't. And she ain't gonna be learning how to anytime soon. And you NEED to get here the ***** document.
Kid, you're in for the rudest ***** awakening once you have to deal with people still using faxes as the primary document sending/receiving tool. You'll be all, "IP! FTP! @!" and they'll think you're speaking Martian. - Tweekster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5legally, electronic docs can be signed. since the late 90's clinton digitally signed that law ...
- kyote, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@Hougat
Did she print it or still make you fax it? - Jeffrey903, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I would think it would be a lot easier to scan it and save it as a PDF document (especially if it's multiple pages). It's a lot easier to manage and keep track of, saves trees, and best of all, it's free. Off of the top of my head, I can't think of anyone who has a fax machine but not an internet connection (including my Grandparents, who have both).
- Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4See my comment above - why adapt obsolete technology to new mediums? Why not ditch the obsolete technology entirely?
- Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5How is a fax any different from a scan printed out on paper? And you can't say "timestamp" because that is so easily falsified; all you have to do is set the time/date/number/name on the sending fax machine to whatever you want.
- gronne, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6A lot of businesses still use fax machines. Especially outside the US. PDF's are slowly starting to replace them but not yet.
- OrangeTide, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I need to hook up my 9600baud modem so I can do BBS-over-VoIP. /
- hazlett, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I use faxes very infrequently but when I do I use FAXAWAY.com. I only need to email a graphic or a Word Doc to 123456789@faxaway.com and it gets sent. I also have a dedicated fax number and Faxaway emails faxes to me.
DISCLAIMER:
I have no connection with Faxaway and this is not SPAM, just information. - eliasg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's very convenient to be able to just send a document without using a computer. Fax machines are very simple. Yet, they're still slow and take forever, and the connections drop. Lately, nearly every network photocopier I've used has scan to PDF/TIFF capability. But, for most office workers, it's not as easy to scan a PDF and e-mail it as it is to stick a paper in a fax and dial.
- McMultiverse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Of course it is. EVERYONE here knows that. Unfortunately, the business world has many, many dark corners where people haven't bothered to upgrade from their first fax machine, purchased 15 years ago. It's annoying as anything you can imagine, but ridding ourselves completely of faxing within the foreseeable future is just not going to happen. God, I would suck a million dicks to make it happen, but it's honestly going to take an entire generation of employees, managers and businesses to up and die off completely before we start putting nails in fax's coffin.
"why adapt obsolete technology to new mediums? Why not ditch the obsolete technology entirely?"
The point is to adapt new technology to deal with idiots who refuse to move from old, obsolete technology. It's stunning how many of you are missing this rather obvious point. - arkmtech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Faxing over IP might as well be equated to sending morse code by telephone - It just doesn't make sense. (Unless you're a hobbiest or such.)
Besides, it's far more practical to keep data in a digital format (i.e. e-mail a PDF or word-processor document) than to print it, fax it, and have somone at the other end have to re-processes it into a digital document again. - toaplan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4That's strange because when I'm required to sign a contract I have to BOTH fax a copy and mail the signed contract, so if the faxed copy was enough why would I have to mail the contract.
- Leadhyena, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Are you kidding me??? I sure as hell don't want my medical information and legal information going over lines that are infinitely tappable without trace! Think about it folks... VOIP has already proven to have a lack of encryption (hopefully Zimmermann can rectify this). All anyone has to do is intercept the VOIP transmission and send to their own FAX, and BINGO they have your document.
The scary thing is that there are probably bots out there on the net that decrypt this stuff and send it out already.
And I'm really freaked about the lawyers that send unencrypted emails and PDFs over the net, but I won't even get into it. - V1ncent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I suggest if a company values faxes that they do not fax over VoIP as its problematical and not as good as using a tradition phone line. We've faxed over VoIP at several jobs using Asterisk and other products and had many less problems using regular phone lines vs VoIP faxing.
- tfizzle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3My company uses a service from a company called callwave. (callwave.com)
Basically, when someone sends us faxes, they intercept it, convert it to a pdf, and email it to us as an attachment. It's only like $6 a month, and given the number of junk faxes for health care, it's a steal. - vdxc, on 09/29/2008, -0/+3but people are already filling the tubes so it takes two days for him to receive internets.
- Rikkochet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Faxes are dominant in TONS of non-technical small businesses. How do you think the corner store orders their candy bars? The pet store faxes their fish order to China. There simply aren't computers in these businesses - the owners are too old (fashioned?) to adopt them - and if fax works perfectly well for them, they aren't going to budge.
When I was working my way through college, the owner of the shop where I worked did all his accounting on a spreadsheet... Like, a big ledger that SPREAD ACROSS HIS DESK. It just worked for him.
It's a dying technology, but then so is email (spam is either killing email or forcing it to evolve into something very different) - but if people are comfortable with it, it's still unfortunately relevant. - Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2toaplan: aha, in that case the faxed (facsimile with a small 'f') copy is not enough - it only shows that something is in the pipeline. The original makes it legal. That, I'm okay with - and you still should be able to email a scan as an attachment.
- Tweekster, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5unless you have a copier that allows you to send email...most new office sized copiers do just that.
or a 20 dollar scanner with an email button...
i wish they would just junk fax machines, they were poor 10 years ago, now they are just plain sad.
and Clinton signed into a law to digitally sign documents so electronically signed documents can be valid. certaintly beats the hell out of a low quality, or extremely low quality copy fax machines produce. - monergism, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4To clear up some of the questions above. The reason faxes are used is because it is an allowable way to transmit legal documents. Technologically it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, other than perhaps physical and traceable origin of transmission, but every contract I have signed is required to go over a fax or be sent in person, not email.
Until this hurdle is removed, faxes remain. They aren't evil but moving to FoIP(?) is a good start. - prvtnet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Real Estate is another vertical that is highly dependent on fax. We are installing a new VOIP phone system in our office that gives everyone their own unique fax number. When a fax is sent the system converts it to a PDF and emails it to the agent. Perfect copy, a paper trail,and the ability to forward. A huge time saver
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Nougat:
>Okay, so someone should create a fax-machine-esque device that:
And they should call it the "HP Digital Sender."
http://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/shop/detail~dpno~646703~name~9200C+Digital+Sender+with+Digital+Sending+Software+4.0~mfg~Q5916A%23484++++++++++.asp - McMultiverse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yeah, I notice a lot of people here are all, "Whatever. Just use e-mail." Man, do I wish it was that simple. If I had the authority to tell every person I have to contact via fax to switch over or else, I wouldn't be waiting for something like Fax Over IP to hit. Diggers need to realize that, in this crazy world of ours, what people SHOULD be doing and what people ARE doing don't always match up. It's a nightmare, which is why FoIP would be such a help.
- KevinJ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Isn't that just pretty much email that auto prints itself?
You are digitizing data and then sending it to another individual, sounds like email to me - McMultiverse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You'd be shocked how many places just aren't equipped for this, especially in government and health care. I know I was. And when you need to get a form processed, lecturing the person on the receiving end about technological progress is about as effective as arguing with a cinderblock.
A quick, easy Fax Over IP solution would be a godsend. Let me fax PDFs and Word documents seamlessly, and you will have me as a customer for life. There have been a number of solutions where you upload your document to a service and they actually fax it out from their servers, but it's costly and time-consuming. And I don't want to hook up the modem connection each time I send something.
I have my fingers crossed. - drgruney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's sad, but I sent three faxes at work today.
- AzBaja, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's next to imposable to intercept a fax, and for secure documents and contracts it's the best way to go. Also sending over VOIP defeats the purpose of the fax, your trying to cut out the middle man aka hacker etc. That is why medical info and contracts are sent over fax and should never legally be sent from computer to computer,
1) you have a direct line from one person to the next, no middle man so to speak.
2) you have a true copy of a document that is a little harder to forge.
3) a fax is some what hacker proof - To0n1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Of course there's medical encryption! It's called the Doctors Handwriting. You should see some of the prescriptions I've had back when I was a kid.
And I thought my handwriting then was horrible. -
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