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What is an internet fax?

Internet Fax (also known as e fax, email fax, online fax, and digital fax) utilizes an internet fax service provider to convert a facsimile transmission into a digital file that can be received via email and vice versa. Internet fax services bridge the gap between the older fax technology, which is well established in today's business environment, and email transmission of documents. In the simplest terms, when you sign up with an internet fax service, you will be assigned a dedicated fax phone number that will convert incoming faxes to email attachments that are automatically sent to your email address. The majority of these services also allow you to send attachments (like Word documents, PDF's, or pictures) to physical fax numbers that are received just as if you had sent them using a standard fax machine. Most internet fax services will send you your documents in a number of different file formats, such as TIF or PDF files.

Why use an internet fax service?

Lower Cost: Typically the monthly fee you pay an internet fax service is less than the cost of a dedicated phone line, and you have no long distance charges. In addition, you don't have to own a fax machine, which also means you don't have to buy paper or toner. Even if you decide to print your faxes, you can still delete junk faxes or other documents you do not need to keep, which will reduce consumption of materials.

More efficient use of time: Many carriers allow you to set up multiple receive emails, so your faxes are automatically delivered to whomever you choose. Because you are receiving faxes via email, you will also receive them on email enabled PDA's. You can then review faxes and take action.

More reliable: You will no longer have to deal with the limitation of your phone line or fax machines. This means no busy signals, no running out of paper, no paper jams, etc.

Environmentally Responsible: Reducing consumption not only reduces costs, it's the responsible thing to do for the environment. Printing every junk fax or bad transmission creates trash and costs money.

Security: Most internet fax services support high level encryption technology. Furthermore, you can designate which email addresses faxes are sent to, which is significantly more secure than having sensitive documents sit in a shared fax machine.

What to look for in an internet fax service:

Market Standard: After reviewing plans with all the internet fax service providers on our list, FaxCompare.com came up with what we consider to be "market standard." Some providers have better pricing and some fall short. However, this is a pretty good yard stick with which to measure everyone.

• 30 day free trial
• No start up fee.
• $9.95 per month
• 300 total pages (incoming and outgoing combined).
• $0.10 per minute for overage pages.
• No Hidden Fees
• 24/7 Customer Service
• Send/Receive capabilities.

We do not recommend selecting an internet fax service based on brand name recognition. There are many reliable internet fax services with good customer service that are priced within FaxCompare.com's "market standard" criteria. Some well known carriers are charging what appears to be a 70% premium for brand recognition.

Pages v. Minutes: Some providers quote rates in minutes and other in pages. Those that quote rates in pages are assuming that it takes 1 minute or less to transmit 1 page. However, they all state that the actual time to transmit a page may vary.

Why use FaxCompare.com?

FaxCompare.com was created as a result of our own frustration in choosing an internet fax service. We have spent over 30 man hours researching all the different internet fax services and organizing the data so you can make an "apples to apples" comparison of the different services and select a provider so you can get back to business. We are committed to providing a quality unbiased resource to individuals and small business owners that will save time and alleviate the frustration we went through in selecting an internet fax service provider for ourselves.