VOIP fax recommendation?

[navychop]

Friend has Fios for land line voice and internet. Also has separate $30/month copper line for his fax.

He believes he can pay $19.95/year and something up front and get a box that he plugs into his router and that he plugs the fax into, and people sending him faxes will never know the difference.

BTW, he only uses the wireless from the router. No wired network. Not sure he can relocate the fax next to the router.

I suggested eFax but he thinks he can go cheaper. Very few faxes. And he doesn't want to move the copper to the fiber - wants cheaper.

Recommendations? Bad idea for fax?

 

[navychop]

Well, I've done the research and thought I'd post some of it here.

It seems to be a known problem, faxes and VOIP. Moreso with some vendors than others. It seems fax machines were designed for analog (obviously) and have not shifted to digital as easily as voice comms. Some machines handle it better than others, but mostly it seems the way the companies provide VOIP services drives it. Perhaps a matter of frequencies available?

Anyway, lot's of complaints out there, especially for some like Magic Jack. The best solution seems to be to handle the faxes with MS Fax Center or similar. Works for us at the office, but maybe not for my friend at his house.

 

[yorktown]

I'm surprised fax machines are still in use today.

Most of the time now people scan and send information as an PDF e-mail attachment, or just send the Microsoft office file as an email attachment.

 

[maxmoto]

Faxing over VoIP just does not work. We tried it and it failed miserably. We are now using RingCentral. It works great. The plans start at $9.99/mo for 300 faxes. You can fax via email strait from office or through the web.