Internet faxing: rising as the main stream of fax business

By: Claudia Walters

Yes, indeed conventional fax machines are dying, and will be out
of the business very soon. We are now living in a digital world
- emails, cell phones, instant messenger, GPRS systems are
everywhere, slipping themselves into everybody's life. Ask
yourself: When is the last time you post your mail through the
postman? And, when is the last time you click on that reply or
forward button to send out an email? Technology change, so does
our life quality.

Faxing services are quite similar with email. When first email
services were introduced, not much people get hooked on and they
still think the posts sent out thru their office boy are more
secure and reliable. But as soon as people find the convenience
of emails ...the heat just spreads out and affects every single
person's life.

Internet faxing, or sometimes known as online faxing, or efax or
fax to email or virtual fax, is a technology that enables you to
send out and receive faxes in email forms. Modern internet
services had made faxing easier and faster in a cheaper way
compare to conventional facsimile transmissions. "We are
eliminating the need for a fax machine," says Janice Kapner,
director of marketing and corporate communications at eFax. eFax
is one of the pioneer in internet fax business that offers a
free fax-to-e-mail service to more than one million subscribers.

By signing up with eFax services, you will get a real fax number
at which you can receive faxes, which are then forwarded to an
e-mail address of your choosing. You can as well send faxes out
to normal fax machine through the service. For more info about
internet faxing, visit this page: How Internet
faxing works. To download free eFax services from official
eFax site, Click here:
eFax official.

Internet faxing has caught the attention of both large and small
businesses. More than 14 billion pages had been sent over
IP-based networks in year 2002 and the number is keep on
increasing, yielding more than 20 billion pages sent at the
writing time of this article.

Why internet faxing service is growing this fast? Answer: the
cost. Internet faxing requires less cost compare to conventional
fax machine, which required user to buy fax machine, fax machine
toners, extra fax lines ...and the list goes on. With internet
faxing, you don't have to invest in equipment; you don't need to
pay for a dedicated fax line; you don't have to allocate extra
budget to maintain your fax machine.

Often, Internet faxing services require only a flat fee to use.
As for eFax, with subscription fees range from $0 to
$19.95/month; you can receive faxes up to 200 pages for free;
you can then send out faxes with a low price of $0.10/page; you
get a local or a toll-free number; you get additional services
such as voicemail-to-email services.

Further more, internet fax doesn't give you a 'busy' tone. You
can always receive faxes as it will just drop into your email
inbox. Faxes can be received even your PC is offline or the
phone line is being used- it's always on and you will never miss
a fax with internet fax. "The `always on' aspect of a Web-based
fax service means that numerous faxes can be received
simultaneously at the same number," says Leslie Morgan Nakajima,
director of corporate communications at Onebox.com.

Convenience is another plus point for internet faxing. With
internet faxing, your faxes become digital files automatically.
This in turns helps you manage your files easily. Just as other
files in your computer, you can now copy, forward, and organize
it in your PC hard disk - simple and clean. With most Internet
faxing services, your faxes become digital files that can be
copied, forwarded, and archived. There's no learning curve for
the service, one can just subscribe and start using it to
improve your daily job.

On the other hand, there are a few limitations to Internet fax:
You need online access and a scanner to fax paper documents.
That's why Dataquest's other numbers show traditional faxing
sticking around for years to come. However, the economy and
manageability of Internet faxing will allow an increasing number
of savvy home office workers to do without a fax machine.



About the author:
The author, Claudia Walters, experience online writter. View her
latest writting assignments on email fax technology at
www.MyInternetFax.biz. Learn how can you send fax via internet and
save up hundreds of traditional faxing expenses.