CallWave Articles: Overview on Internet Fax

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Even in this age of e-mail, the lowly, sometimes illegible fax remains a mainstay. It is critical for moving around documents that have strayed far from their original computer file, or that contain signatures or other hard-to-reproduce diagrams (as long as they're not in color, of course).

However, faxing nowadays doesn't only available on conventional faxing machine. By utilizing the Internet, we can now easily send out 'email fax' online. Internet faxing, or sometimes known as email faxing or online fax, is one of the latest technologies that provides its users to send and receive faxes without a fax machine.

Instead, Internet access and an email account is all that is required. If you have access to your Internet email and have a web browser, the email-to-fax seems like a pretty good alternative to go for.

There is quite a lot of Internet faxing services that enable you to send your fax over Internet. It is a type of online services that provide subscribers with the ability to send and receive faxes without a fax machine. Instead, Internet access and an email account are all the necessary. Internet faxes are received or sent in form of email attachments or normal fax machine copies. Some of these Internet faxing services are free while others require you to pay a certain amount of money on a monthly basis. Some of the examples of Internet faxing services includes: eFax, Call Wave Internet faxing, Green Fax, Trust Fax, Fax it Nice, Fax Mate, and Inter Fax.

How Internet fax works?

To send an Internet fax, the subscriber creates an email account. The fax content can be written in the body of the email, and attachments are normally permitted. The destination fax number is entered in the 'To' field, along with the Internet fax service name (efax for example). For example, if the fax number were 1-555-234-5678, the email would be addressed to 15552345678@efax.com. In the subject·field, user will need to input the recipient name, for example: Attn: Mr. Fax.

Receiving Internet faxes is easy; you do not need to be familiar with faxing software nor fax machines neither to use the Internet faxing interface. Normally, the email faxing services will install a small tools (toolbar or window box) into your PC as a plug-in inside the email program. Upon receipt, an automated program converts the email to a fax format, then faxes to the number supplied in the fax-header. The recipient receives the fax normally, through fax machine.

Why Internet fax?

There are numerous reasons to start using Internet fax services in your business or personal usage. If you have ever owned a fax machine then you can understand how frustrating it is when it jams, cuts off page text, stops in the middle of a transmission, or the receiving machine is constantly busy or out of paper. Eventually you might ruin your own business because of all those communication troubles caused by the traditional fax machines. Life with Internet fax is much more easier- 24 hours ready, no more engage tones, and no more paper jamming. Faxes will always sent out and arrived smoothly via your email account.

Which Internet fax to go for?

There are lots of vendor out there who provide Internet faxing service. Frankly their cost and their service are much the same. However our recommendation will be eFax as they provide on the best technical and customer support in town. With eFax Internet fax service, you can sign up for a fax number that enables you to receive and send out fax as email attachments. eFax service currently come with three different packages: the one with highest cost: eFax Pro for heavy faxing that charge $19.95/month; eFax Plus for average use, monthly cost $12.95/month and eFax Free that cost you nothing to receive maximum 25 free faxes thru the Internet.

What makes eFax service attractive is because of their extra features. One of the nice features is the fax archive in eFax server. If you are using eFax Pro or eFax Plus, and if you delete or misplace a fax you received, you can return to the eFax site within certain period and download it again.

You can use eFax if you have a Unix box or use Linux or WebTV, but the faxes you receive are in a TIFF format that doesn't utilize the service's password-protection or compression features.

Getting started with eFax

Getting started with eFax is simple; you don't even need to know how to operate a fax machine in order to use eFax Internet faxing services. First, subscribe to eFax services by clicking here. When you register, you receive a PIN number to view your account information on the eFax.com site. You can use your PIN number to password-protect the faxes you receive and to view an activity log of faxes sent to you during the previous three days, which is handy for managing your personal contact information and for confirming that faxes were sent.

Go to eFax official website, Click here.