Internet fax
The technology of creating, sending and receiving fax messages over the internet is similar to the VoIP technology. Just like VoIP, internet faxing uses the existing broadband internet connections in order to transmit signals which are then decoded and printed on a remote fax machine. In order to understand how the technology works we need to first look at the system of conventional transmission of fax messages. A fax machine includes a scanner, a modem and a printer. The image sent using this technology is firstly scanned and then the digitized signal is transmitted to the recipient by means of the modem. The receiving fax machine transforms the digital impulses into images and prints them on paper. Only one image can be sent or received at a time in this case, and the amount of fees that have to be paid may be large enough, especially when a fax is sent to a very remote place. Instead of all this internet faxing uses not the existing phone lines, but the existing broadband lines, which considerably reduces the costs, especially if a firm has send faxes to remote places on a regular basis. The principle is the following: an image is scanned and in a computer format attached to an electronic mail, which is sent directly from an IP-enabled fax machine to another fax machine in any place of the world. Thus, the only fee that has to be paid is the Internet Service Provider fee. The disadvantages of the technology are similar to the ones of VoIP, for example the reduced reliability of broadband lines in comparison with conventional phone lines.