Fax Question

John_V85 · 22 Dec 2006 at 22:52

Hi,

I think this forum is as good as any place to ask this question. If somewhere else is more appropriate moderators please move.

Anyhow, I am thinking of getting one of these all-in-one printers, scanners, copiers, faxes, etc. and wanted to know what happens with the fax component.

Does it simply plug into a telephone socket in the house via standard telephone cable? When you send a fax does it use the exisiting phone line and how are you charged for it? What number would you give someone to fax you?

Cheers,

John

Joe42 · 22 Dec 2006 at 23:28

I have an all in one printer with fax but i've never used the fax bit.
I think it does plug into your normal phone line, i seem to remember theres a plug for that and a cable and splitter was included. Not sure about the other questions though.

MetA · 22 Dec 2006 at 23:39

Yes, it sends/receives via your phone line.
The number to send to is the phone number for that line.
You are charged outgoing faxes as they were telephone calls - to the network that's all it is

The drawback of all this is the interaction between normal use of the phone, the FAX and any answer machine. Traditionally you'd set up the FAX to answer after X rings. But clearly this will conflict with an answering machine. Some are smart and if they dont train as a fax can pass it on to a phone based answer machine - but this won't work with exchange voicemail.

Best - if only personal use - is to get people to let you know when they're sending adn set up your fax to manually receive and you are in control.

Joe42 · 22 Dec 2006 at 23:45

With email so easy i can't see much use for fax's myself.
What do people use them for these days?

John_V85 · 23 Dec 2006 at 12:25

Joe42 said:
With email so easy i can't see much use for fax's myself.
What do people use them for these days?

To be honest with you I don't see why it is still popular as it is, but I am quite often asked in personal/business capacity to fax something over. I normally scan stuff in and email it over, but I was considering whether the easier option would be to get an allinone printer to replace my one thats on the brink of breaking.

Thanks MetA for all that info. I was wondering how the phone and fax would interact on the same line and the problems it might cause. Presumably this is why many companies have a seperate line for the fax.

player · 27 Dec 2006 at 20:47

have you considered using an online fax service?

You can scan your document, send it via this service and the user at the other end receives it like it were a fax.

John_V85 · 27 Dec 2006 at 20:57

That's an option, but I don't even have a scanner with me at the moment, so though about one of these printer,fax,scanner combos.

player · 27 Dec 2006 at 23:25

I'm in a similar situation, I think I'll just plum for an all in one (well - scanner and printer) and use efax to send faxes via the PC.