Fax

Just as, once upon a time, motorized barges replaced sailing ships as a means to transport goods by water, so too a transformation is taking place today regarding fax technology. The ubiquitous fax machine used to transmit documents using analog phone lines is now doomed to extinction as a newer, better technology takes over: Internet-based fax.

 

In a new case study, online communications service provider RingCentral (News - Alert) explained why Internet fax is better than traditional fax, and why the newer technology is quickly killing off the old.

 

To illustrate this new vs. old point, RingCentral provided an example of two small business owners, Al and Bob. Al uses traditional fax technology; Bob uses the online RingCentral Fax service. Before heading off to an important meeting, Al sends a fax: he prints a document, removes it from the printer, feeds the document into the fax machine, enters the phone number, presses “Send,” and waits. And waits. And waits. After a bunch of waiting, the transmission fails and he has to start all over again. He then arrives late to the meeting.

 

Meanwhile, Bob sends his fax directly from his computer, no printing necessary. With the document open, he simply clicks on a “fax” button. This opens a wizard window where Bob enters the fax number and then clicks on “send.” He closes the document and goes to his appointment. While driving to the appointment, Bob gets a text message on his cell phone: “Fax Send Complete.”

 

A similar scenario occurs when Al and Bob each receive an important fax. You probably will guess, correctly, that Al runs into lots of trouble (fax isn’t in the machine; no-one else in the office took it; waits for sender to re-send the fax; when it finally arrives the fax is nearly illegible). Bob breezes through the fax receive process.

 

By now, you may be chuckling with recognition over Al’s problems. Virtually everyone who has ever used a fax machine has encountered various frustrations associated with the technology’s limitations. The RingCentral white paper elaborates on a variety of disadvantages with traditional fax, including:

Internet fax technology, like that used for RingCentral Fax, offers three key advantages over traditional fax:

To get details about these three advantages, read the full white paper here. For more about Internet-based fax, please visit RingCentral’s Fax channel on TMCnet.com.

 

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Fax