How Internet Fax Works?
By: James Allen | Posted: 23rd November 2010
Internet faxing is a technological boon for the entire business community as all types of documents like MS Word documents, PDF files and scanned images can be attached to an Email and faxed to an analog fax machine. Yet another blessing is Internet faxing is a hosted service and as such you are not required to invest in any hardware and spend on its subsequent maintenance or buy software packages or recurrently buy consumables.
All you need to do is to subscribe to a third-party Internet faxing service and they will undertake to convert e-mails into faxes and faxes into e-mails. The basic prerequisites for availing Internet faxing services are - a sound Internet connection, an Email facility and tie up with a reliable Internet service provider. Sending and receiving Internet faxes are quite simple and calls for no special expertise.
The three-step formula for sending Internet faxes are:
- Using your desktop e-mail application or Web mail, create a message and send the file you want to fax as an attachment.
- Address the e-mail to the recipient's fax number, plus a special extension for which the details will be given by your service provider.
- Once the e-mail attachment is received, it automatically encodes the attachment as fax data and transmits it through a phone line to the receiver's fax machine.
The three-step formula for receiving Internet faxes are:
- Your Internet-fax service provider will assign you either a toll-free or regular fax number.
- The sender dials your fax number and then sends the fax from a standard fax machine.
- The service receives the fax, reconverts the data into an e-mail attachment and sends it to your e-mail address - which you can open and read.
As e-mail and Internet connection are the two prime requisites for availing Internet fax services, it is feasible to do mobile faxing - sending Internet faxes from a handheld device like Blackberry, Treo, pocket computer or palm computer. This is known as faxing from PDA (Personal Digital Assistants) faxing.
It is to be noted that handheld mobile devices adopt varying methods for Internet faxing:
- Some PDAs use the standard modems and plug them into a phone line or a cell phone for dial-up Internet connection.
- Most PDAs synchronize with the computer either by means of a cradle or even directly. When the PC is connected to the Internet, so does the handheld device.
- PDAs can also be connected to the Internet by means of cellular carriers operating over WANs.
- PDA with a wireless card can be connected to the Internet through LAN.
Once the Internet connectivity to your mobile device is in place, you can send / receive faxes the same way you would from a computer. Please know that you can also save Internet fax messages just like you would any email attachment and you can access any time.
Internet faxing makes it possible to send and receive faxes without investing in costly equipments. Because only email facility and Internet are needed, you can avail Internet fax services wherever there is the Internet. Thus Internet fax services are a boon for mobile users, business travelers, field personnel and even holidaymakers.
To get more information about VoIP Phone System as well as finding more information about 800 Numbers. To learn more visit: http://www.ringcentral.com/This article is free for republishing
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Tags: e mail address, internet service provider, fax machine, internet fax service, requisites