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History

In the early 90's is was quite typical to install a PC-based fax/modem card and fax software (typically WinFax Pro) on at least one if not many small business PCs.  Having been largely replaced by E-mail, PC-based faxing with a fax/modem is increasingly a rarity.  Where faxing is needed the traditional fax/modem card approach is being replaced by Internet (and E-mail) -based faxing.  It's still common to see businesses with a one or more traditional fax machines churning out pages, but they are typically surrounded by a forest of PCs processing even more E-mail.

PC Faxing today?

It's too expensive to do it the old way!  Setting up a PC-based fax/modem solution with card, phone line access and software is still quite possible, but the costs can be prohibitive compared to simply using a service that makes faxing as easy as printing or sending an E-mail message.

As an alternative, we've been impressed with the Fax integration available within unified communications (e.g. E-mail, Voice Mail and Fax managed together) that is included in virtual PBX products like oneBox (see our guide 'Virtual PBXs - work anywhere with any phones') where standard features allow you to send a fax by using the fax phone number as the address of a E-mail message, and incoming faxes are received via E-mail with the Fax content presented as a PDF attachment.

Other Internet-based services have similar ease-of-use.  We found a very useful guide and comparison at: www-savetz-com/fax/helpmechoose.php (<-- Copy, paste and correct).  For as little as $10.00 a month it's possible to use a service to send and receive faxes via E-mail (eFax, MyFax, etc.) and save all the fuss of a local solution (Phone line=$15 to 20 a month, software=$30 or so via eBay, plus a significant setup effort.)

Recommendation

We ONLY install Fax/modem cards as a last-resort, a backup to high speed Internet connections.  And, we certainly DO NOT install them on every PC in a business.  Unless the need is very unique, we can't think of a good reason to go through all the pain of making this old-technology approach work.  At the same time we highly recommend the newer-technology Internet-based solutions...

While updating this guide we found a well-composed complementary guide titled 'WinFax Pro Read This 1st' that you may wish to review.

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