Ditching the fax machine

[Shaun_Dark_Lord]

Apologies if this is not the right forum, but I couldn't find a more relevant one.

 

We're a year into our managed print project, and are starting to scrap printers as their toner runs out. The fax machine in the main school office does not have much time left, so I need to decide whether to install a fax card in the nearest MFD, or if I can instead go for a fax-email service.

 

Has anyone found a good fax-email service provider?

 

Thanks

[john]

Do you actually use the fax still?

[FN-GM]

We don't use fax at all. No need anymore. Email has well and truly killed it.

[Shaun_Dark_Lord]

Do you actually use the fax still?

 

I'd like to not bother, but the Finance department are insistent.

[Oaktech]

I would not be without some sort of fax service.

 

We still have a number of suppliers who are still stuck in last third of the 20th century and will only accept orders by fax and deliver invoices by fax - notably our catering disposables and janitorial supplier. We also have documents sent into us from external child related agencies who don't use secure email services.

[john]

I would not be without some sort of fax service.

 

We still have a number of suppliers who are still stuck in last third of the 20th century and will only accept orders by fax and deliver invoices by fax - notably our catering disposables and janitorial supplier. We also have documents sent into us from external child related agencies who don't use secure email services.

 

Because the fax machine is secure yes? You never get any risk of someone picking 2 faxes up by accident or the line being intercepted like an encrypted email..... I would suggest raising that one with those instant on sending highly confidential and sensitive data via the 1970s. 7Zip does Zip and Encrypt for free, they could send that and if they love the fax, fax you the password to go with it!

[localzuk]

We still use faxes, rarely, but we use them. We do about 5 a month... So, at the moment, that's costing us about £15 a month for our dedicated fax line!

[Oaktech]

Because the fax machine is secure yes? You never get any risk of someone picking 2 faxes up by accident or the line being intercepted like an encrypted email..... I would suggest raising that one with those instant on sending highly confidential and sensitive data via the 1970s. 7Zip does Zip and Encrypt for free, they could send that and if they love the fax, fax you the password to go with it!

 

I never said it was a good idea... We've raised it on several occasions, but it's been met with indifference by the agency involved. That's the way they've always done it, nothing bad has happened they see no reason to change. Because of who they are, we are not in a position to refuse to deal with them.

[Shaun_Dark_Lord]

So, getting back on topic, fax to email anyone?

[truebluesteve]

We still use faxes, rarely, but we use them. We do about 5 a month... So, at the moment, that's costing us about £15 a month for our dedicated fax line!

 

Same here - our finance department still sends and receives faxes, although we ditched our analogue line and use a SIP trunk instead and it gets converted to analogue on our Avaya IP Office system. That costs around £4.00 a month so isn't too bad. Our HR department also get the occasional job application via fax - strange when you consider someone can't email it but has access to a fax!

Edited January 20, 2015 by truebluesteve

[Shaun_Dark_Lord]

Same here - our finance department still use faxes, although we ditched our analogue line and use a SIP trunk instead and it gets converted to analogue on our Avaya IP Office system. That costs around £4.00 a month so isn't too bad.

 

I'd considered that, but didn't want too much hassle.

[truebluesteve]

I'd considered that, but didn't want too much hassle.

 

Hassle in what way? I found it was quite easy to set up and the only requirement is to have a dedicated line between IP Office and the fax extension

[Shaun_Dark_Lord]

Hassle in what way? I found it was quite easy to set up and the only requirement is to have a dedicated line between IP Office and the fax extension

 

Our SIP servers are virtual, so hooking up the analogue line would be tricky

[Axis32]

Our SIP servers are virtual, so hooking up the analogue line would be tricky

 

 

Apologies for Thread Necro but I was searching for good ip fax alternatives to see if anybody was using them. So for best I've found is Stonefax....but I digress.

 

Hooking into a virtual sip server isn't tricky at all. I do this with all of our fax machines using the SPA112 Cisco SPA112 2-Port Phone Adapter - Cisco

 

They are around $40 each and you register them with the sip server over ip and then plug your analog phone/fax machine into the phone port...takes about 5-10 from start to finish.