Sending fax from PC

I have found on my windows 7 PC

Windows fax and scan. Do I need a modem for this as these days we all use modem wireless routers?

Desmond.

On Mar 6, 10:27 am, Desmond wrote:
I have found on my windows 7 PC

Windows fax and scan. Do I need a modem for this as these days we all use modem wireless routers?

Desmond.

I like that - 'we all,' the people &etc. Then we all call up a bank
or some regulatory agency, conveniently using the LCD, a plain 'ol
copper line telephone subscription at a present minimum of $40 monthly
-- someone besides we all by dint of their having reason for requiring
we all to jump through some paperwork hoops -- we all might think
thereupon to complain, who then responds to any complaints by -- 'but,
but ... you all can use our convenient fax technology ported over from
mid-century, last century.'

My favorite: We not all lost your all's rebate paperwork sent in the
mail. But, but, we not all are magnanimously prepared to receive your
all resubmissions on a fax machine, whereupon you all can legally have
your all monies we not all will keep until that option is met at some
further notice.

Oh, yea, the question: Do you all need a fax modem? Short answer: Not
if the Gods have any say and forbid them.

On Wed, 6 Mar 2013, Desmond wrote:

I have found on my windows 7 PC

Windows fax and scan. Do I need a modem for this as these days we all
use modem wireless routers?

Not likely.

FAX as people knew it was a method of sending pages over the phone line.
It became cheap enough for home and small office usejust before the
internet started to become readily available.

As the internet became very common, the use of fax machines dropped off
dramatically. Most of what could be done could be done through electronic
means, just email that pdf. The only holdouts are some silly institutions
that "don't trust" electronic files, so they still insist on getting
faxes, and they are the ones who still have fax machines. There's no way
to send faxes "over the internet", you are then simply sending a file
electronically, and other methods (like an attachment to email) is the way
to go.

If you don't have a modem, then forget it.

The only alternative, and I doubt it exists much, is an email to fax
server. In the old days, various peopole would set up email to fax
servers, my first ISP had one, so you could send email to it and it would
dial the local number and send the email out as a fax. They were quite
common at one time, kind of useful so long as there was such a server
local to where you needed to send the fax.

The odd thing is, that breaks things for all the reasons people still fuss
over faxes, an intermediate step where the document could be "tampered"
with, yet it was really the same process as if you'd generated the
document electronically and sent it via your modem to a fax machine, the
only difference being the modem was remote at the email to fax server.

I don't think that sort of thing is common nowadays. It was one of those
cool things that was done before the internet got popular, and a lot of
free stuff back then disappeared as the population moved to the internet
and all wanted to use such free things. Or maybe not, maybe they just
faded as the use of fax machines dwindled, most people using the internet
directly to send files.

You could always add a modem if you really want to send a fax. I found
two 33.6K external modems lying on the sidewalk a week ago, one stil had
its ac adapter plugged in (I think the other one's ac adapter was in that
ball of cable and ac adapters, I couldn't be bothered to unknot it all).
Since FAX is a separate standard, any modem beyond some speed, I think
14.4K maybe not even that fast, will work for sending and receiving faxes.
It's not the speed, it's that at some point fax capability was added, and
the fax standard never changed, so you don't need the latest modem. Of
course, now many computers no longer have serial ports, so external modems
aren't so useful.

Michael

Desmond wrote:
I have found on my windows 7 PC

Windows fax and scan. Do I need a modem for this as these days we all use modem wireless routers?

Desmond.

The first two ways, use Windows FAX and Scan. The third just uses
Email on your end, but costs money. The third way might be useful
for a business, with higher volume FAX and the need to eliminate
junk faxes easily perhaps.

Standard way
------------

Desmond
|
Computer Recipient
| 9.6K .. 14.4K |
Fax_Modem ----- Voice_Line ----- Fax_Machine

Alternate way
-------------

Desmond
| ISP Data/Voice
Computer Gateway
| | |
Fax_Modem | | Recipient
| (VOIP flaky at 14.4K rate) | | |
VOIP Box --- Broadband modem/router ---+ +----- Voice_Line ----- Fax_Machine

The cheater's way
-----------------

Desmond
| EmailToFAX
Computer Gateway $$$
| | |
Email | | Recipient
| | | |
Broadband modem/router ----------------+ +----- Voice_Line ----- Fax_Machine

The fastest FAX I've ever sent, was at 14400 baud (14.4K).
I don't know if any standard allows faster than that.

The VOIP box, while it's intended to carry POTS (voice band)
communications, doesn't seem to support 14400 very well. Some
people end up setting the FAX software to transmit at 9600,
to get sufficient VOIP communications quality, for the transfer
to complete. So for this purpose, VOIP from your ISP, is not
an exact replacement. The VOIP might still be acceptable
for regular speech transmission (because the human ear is
tolerant of some types of channel degradations).

Paul

Desmond wrote:
I have found on my windows 7 PC

Windows fax and scan. Do I need a modem for this as these days we
all use modem wireless routers?

Conventional faxes need conventional data/fax modems.

Senders and recipients need mutually compatible methods of transmission
and reception.

How often (and how many pages) do you need to fax something to some
entity that needs to receive a conventional fax?

That volume or frequency will help to determine what you should do if
you want to send conventional faxes to a recipient which is unable to
receive by other means such as email.


--
Mike Easter

"Desmond" wrote:
I have found on my windows 7 PC

Windows fax and scan. Do I need a modem for this as these days
we all use modem wireless routers?

Desmond.

Yes, you need a FAX/voice modem. If you want to send FAXes from your
computer (as opposed to sending from an external FAX machine), you can
pick up an internal PCI 56K FAX modem from Fry's for about $14. It can use
the Windows FAX and Scan utility, or it can use the supplied software that
comes on CD. If you have a network-attached FAX/printer, you can also send
the document from your computer to the FAX/printer via ethernet and thence
FAX it out on your telephone landline.

In all computer-involved FAXing, the document file is sent to the modem
or the FAX/printer as if it were a print job, but the selection of "printer"
in the "print" drop-down menu is one that is actually selection of a FAXer,
and that entry in the "print" menu is put there by the installation routine
of the FAXing device.

*TimDaniels*

"Desmond" wrote in message
...

I have found on my windows 7 PC

Windows fax and scan. Do I need a modem for this as these days we all
use modem wireless routers?

In order to send a fax you need a functioning telephone connection
and computer software to digitize your document in a way that
connection can use. Before Windows XP this required
(1) a telephone line
(2) a fax modem in your PC
(3) fax sofware application.

Windows XP built #3 into the OS, and so does Win7. You still
need a means of connecting your own PC with the fax recipient's
telephone number.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

I use
http://faxzero.com/