How does Internet faxing work?
The diagram above shows how faxes are sent and received through the Internet. Documents are converted to digital files and vice versa by passing through gateways and servers. This is so that they can be viewed both in your Internet-connected computer and out of your fax machine.
The traditional way of sending faxes is by connecting to the receiving end via the telephone line. To send a fax, you first have to dial the fax number and wait for the fax tone before you can actually send the document. If the transmission fails, you have to repeat the same procedure over again. Receiving a fax is quite similar. To accept an incoming fax, you have to permit the transmission before the fax is sent to you.
With Internet fax, however, you don’t have to rush to the fax machine anymore just to allow a fax to come in and be printed out of the machine. Similarly, you can easily send faxes right from your desk without having to spend as much time as you used to.
Sending Faxes
Faxing online transmits documents through the Internet. Sending faxes is now similar to how you send emails. In fact, you actually use email to send and receive faxes. However, this does not mean that you will not be able to transmit faxes to and from traditional fax machines. Whenever you send a fax, it goes through a server which converts the digital file to a printable document out of a fax machine. In the same way, whenever you receive a fax from a traditional line, it will first pass through a gateway to be converted to a digital file format. Faxes are commonly converted to PDF and TIFF formats. However, most service providers are able to support other document types, such as JPG, GIF or even media files like WAV or MP3. It is important that the file types that you work around with are compatible with your server.
Receiving Faxes
Upon signing up for a web fax service, you will be given a virtual fax number. This is usually a local or a toll free number, and it serves as your caller ID and appears with all the faxes you send. You will also receive faxes through this number. Several service providers can let you keep your existing fax number if you want to.