Will Internet Fax Be The Way Of The Future?
There are many doubts in the internet fax industry - the most common one being whether or not the internet fax methods will last for an extended period. As more and more people turn to email to perform the transmission tasks that were once only possible with a manual fax machine, it comes as no surprise that the uptake rates of internet fax aren't exactly stellar.
But can we base our opinions and future expectations solely around these uptake statistics? Is it really fair to judge the future of internet fax capabilities based simply on one set of data? In most peoples opinions, the answer is a resounding no.
Why Is Fax Still Alive At All?
Some people have even gone as far as to ask why on earth the fax machine is still in existence. After all, we now have email - which is fast, free, and utilized by almost anyone who has access to the internet. Indeed, this is true, however there are a few fundamental areas where email fails to beat faxing.
1. Speed of a fax.
There is no doubt that if you need to send a printed and signed 1 page document, faxing is the most efficient way to do it. Email would require you to scan the document in, attach, input the recipients email address, send, and wait for a read confirmation.
Clearly, for one-off tasks - fax and internet fax beat email hands down.
2. Reliability.
"Oh sorry, I didn't get your email! It must be in space somewhere."
A typical excuse for an email going astray. Some people put the level of "lost" email transmission at 250 million per year. That's a whole lot of emails ending up in orbit! With faxing however, you are able to identify whether or not the document was successfully transmitted immediately upon the conclusion of the sending process.
3. Fax machines still exist.
Until people ditch their fax machines and internet fax software altogether - people will be forced to use it. There is one fundamental issue that email has in relation to fax. Unless you have email to fax software installed - there is no way to get an email to pop out of the other persons fax machine!
Hence, if someone requires a document to be sent via fax - you will need to find a fax machine to send it from! Until everyone decides to eliminate faxes from their life - this will continue to be the case.
