4 Causes To not Use a Fax Server and three Higher Options

4 Causes To not Use a Fax Server and three Higher Options


A fax server is a bodily or digital server that’s used to handle the sending, receiving, and storage of faxes over a digital or analog community. Fax servers have been as soon as thought-about commonplace gear in most enterprise workplaces, however they’re all however out of date today.

As an alternative, there are actually many higher options in the marketplace, so there’s no have to take care of fax servers and the complications they create within the first place.

4 causes to not use a fax server

1. Fax infrastructure is painful to scale

One of many hardest issues about making adjustments to your workplace communications setup is doing so at scale. This could be a actual nuisance with fax servers, because it takes cautious planning so that you simply don’t find yourself with some significantly snarled communications.

Moreover, scaling a fax server usually requires a hefty funding in new know-how, together with further fax boards, modems, and servers to take care of the elevated fax quantity shifting by means of your workplace.

On-line fax companies allow you to keep away from this subject solely, providing far smoother scalability with out the necessity for added {hardware} investments. This makes cloud-based companies much more geared up to accommodate a enterprise’s rising communication wants.

2. Restricted flexibility

Merely put, fax servers are solely nice at sending and receiving faxes. Which means they’re not very helpful in fashionable workplace communications the place individuals have to ship and obtain messages throughout quite a lot of platforms and gadgets.

Since fax servers aren’t designed to work together with the varied sorts of gadgets we use at the moment, they will run into important hurdles in relation to workplace communications.

Making an attempt to shoehorn a fax server into your online business operations can throw off your workflows or require you to give you workarounds to accommodate the antiquated know-how. On the similar time, it additionally requires you to run the chance of shedding monitor of any doc that isn’t a part of your in any other case cloud-based system.

Lengthy story brief, sustaining compatibility with evolving know-how requirements and protocols could be a problem for tax servers that’s simply not value taking over.

In distinction, many on-line options include a far higher deal of flexibility, permitting customers to ship and obtain faxes by way of e-mail, on-line platforms, and even apps. Workers can ship a fax from an iPhone, for instance, regardless of the place they’re.

On-line faxes are additionally saved centrally and might be accessed by your workforce. This makes it a lot simpler to arrange and entry information. Distant employees can retrieve no matter they want with out having to come back into the workplace.

3. Fax server upkeep prices

Since fax servers are hardware-dependent, they require ongoing upkeep, which may eat up finances. And, as a result of this gear is ageing out of relevance, it’s not all the time doable for any previous technician to service it — so that you in all probability have to discover a specialist.

It may be tempting to skirt this explicit draw back by merely not sustaining your fax servers as a lot, however this could be a expensive mistake. Downtime and system failures can simply disrupt enterprise operations and incur further prices for troubleshooting and repairs.

In spite of everything, fax doesn’t require a ton of bandwidth, however the connection must be steady. Slight delays or issues lead to faxes not being despatched or obtained.

On-line fax options sidestep this solely, as they don’t require any devoted {hardware}, they usually provide predictable subscription-based pricing fashions with minimal upfront funding.

4. Safety dangers

The older a know-how is, the extra seemingly it’s been damaged into or hacked alongside the best way — and if not, it might nonetheless embrace vulnerabilities that make it extra prone to be compromised within the first place. Fax servers are not any exception to this rule, and folks have had a very long time to determine how you can hack them and exploit their vulnerabilities.

The unlucky reality is that transmitting delicate info over conventional telephone strains and unsecured networks will increase the chance of your information being intercepted and utilized by hackers and scammers — and there’s not a complete lot you are able to do to mitigate that threat with conventional fax servers.

In fact, cloud-based and on-line fax options have their safety vulnerabilities too, however additionally they have superior safety protocols and use fashionable encryption strategies to safeguard info.

Moreover, relying on the service, many on-line fax options adjust to {industry} safety rules, and these options are additionally up to date commonly in response to rising threats.

Three higher options than an in-house fax server

1. On-line fax options

On-line fax options are the present gold commonplace substitute for fax servers. They permit companies to do all the identical issues they may do with a standard fax setup, solely with a lot higher levels of safety and comfort.

Typically referred to as web faxing or digital faxing, on-line faxing works very similar to sending an e-mail. You merely open up the software program or platform, choose the doc you need to ship, after which click on a button to ship it to a different particular person’s fax machine or on-line fax service.

The primary advantages of on-line fax options embrace:

  • Price-effectiveness: On-line fax companies often provide subscription or pay-as-you-go pricing, and it’s less expensive than having to purchase, keep, and replace all that {hardware} and software program.
  • Scalability: If you must add one other line to your on-line fax service, all you need to do is let your supplier know. There’s no want to put in further {hardware} or purchase new software program.
  • Flexibility: The key phrase in on-line fax companies is “on-line.” Since every part occurs over a community, you and your workforce can entry faxes anyplace you might have an web connection.
  • Safety: On-line fax companies are typically very safe, with encryption protocols and information privateness measures. Relying on which service you go together with, you’ll be able to even discover choices that adjust to industry-specific safety rules, like HIPAA.

2. VoIP companies

Voice over Web Protocol (VoIP) companies allow you to make and obtain calls over the web as a substitute of over conventional telephone strains, they usually can be used to ship faxes. The best way it really works is by sending digital information to a different particular person’s fax machine the place it might be transformed or translated again into analog alerts by way of their VoIP service or an analog phone adapter (ATA) that helps a fax machine learn it.

In contrast to a standard fax machine, a VoIP fax service received’t mechanically print out no matter it receives, however it’ll maintain it as a file in a cloud-based system, which implies you’ll be able to entry it anyplace after which print it everytime you need.

The primary advantages of VoIP telephone companies embrace:

  • Price-effectiveness: Very similar to on-line fax companies, VoIP telephone companies typically run low cost, and most work on a subscription mannequin that you could simply improve or lower as wanted.
  • Seamless integration: Since VoIP telephone companies accomplish that many different issues than faxing, they make an excellent possibility for companies that need to maintain their operations as built-in as doable. With VoIP telephone companies, your workforce can entry their telephone service, faxes, doc administration, and extra multi functional place.
  • Superior options: VoIP telephone companies include a variety of superior options that make faxing simpler, with fax-to-email conversion being one of the helpful. This makes it so your faxes are despatched to your e-mail, the place you’ll be able to even reply to them. Many VoIP telephone companies additionally provide on-line doc signing, which might be very handy for those who’re faxing issues like contracts.

It’s necessary to notice that many VoIP telephone companies additionally present fax companies — however not all of them do. Do your analysis to ensure no matter service you take into account has all of the performance you want.

3. Doc administration programs

Doc administration programs (DMS) aren’t particularly designed for faxing, however they will usually be used for it anyway, making them an excellent various to a fax server.

They work very equally to on-line fax companies in that you could add a doc to the DMS after which ship it out as a digital fax. Faxes you obtain can be despatched instantly into your DMS the place it may be categorized together with the remainder of your information.

The primary advantages of DMS embrace:

  • Comfort: When you’re already utilizing a DMS to handle your paperwork and you must ship faxes, it simply is smart to make use of the identical platform to do each features.
  • Constructed-in integration: Faxes are despatched and obtained instantly from the DMS, which implies that you don’t have to fret about copying information over from a fax service or pulling information out of your DMS to ship by way of your fax service.
  • Simple group: When you’ve already obtained an excellent hierarchy in your DMS, faxes will match proper in, without having to create one other course of.

I’ve nothing towards fax servers personally, I simply don’t assume it’s one of the simplest ways for many workplaces to deal with fax. There are too many higher choices on the market.

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