Want a cheaper fax solution? Send an internet fax

If you’ve been experiencing difficulty with your fax machine, you might want to know how to send an internet fax. Your company needs a fax system to operate, but when the fax machine breaks down or malfunctions for unknown reasons as it is wont to do, knowing an alternative way to send and receive faxes is very important.

So how do you send an internet fax?

You need a good computer with a browser that can support web applications and a stable internet connection. If you’ve sent and used email before, then online faxing is a cinch for you.
You have two options to choose from if you want to send an internet fax. You can either send a free fax or pay for your faxing with a monthly fax service. Depending on your usage and the amount of faxing you anticipate to perform in a month, a free fax could be enough for you.

Free fax

You know that there are cheaper solutions for your faxing when you can find free offers. Using a free fax website to send an internet fax is a great way to give the process a try and familiarize yourself with it. Trying this out first before deciding you want a paid fax service is always a wise move. You can send a free fax through a website with an embedded fax application. Searching online can yield many service providers.

Since the service is free, however, expect the website to impose some or all of the following limitations:

1. You can’t receive any faxes since you aren’t given a fax number.
2. You can only send one or two faxes per day.
3. Your document must be in TIFF or PDF file format. The website won’t be able to send your document correctly if it isn’t.
4. You won’t know if your fax was sent in order since you aren’t given any form of notification.
5. You can’t send an international fax.

If a few small, local faxes are enough for your daily faxing needs, then you may not have to pay for your faxing at all and simply enjoy the free service.

Premium fax service

If you want to send an internet fax that exceeds the restrictions imposed by free fax websites, then maybe the best option for you is to subscribe to a monthly fax service.

The main advantage a paid service has over a free one is the fax number. You’re given your own fax number that works just as if you had a dedicated fax line. People with fax machines can actually dial that number and send faxes to you.

Most of the restrictions previously placed on a free fax are eliminated. You can send JPEG, DOC, DOCX, TXT and even HTML files as your fax to anywhere in the world. You’re given a large volume of faxes to send and receive in a month. You can even send one fax to as many recipients as you want with one click.

These are just some of the benefits you can enjoy if you pay for your faxing. Who knows, sending an internet fax may be right for you.

The easiest way to fax: send an internet fax

When you’re looking for a quick and easy way to perform fax functions, you can choose to send an internet fax. It’s simple, fast and more reliable than traditional faxing.

How so? It makes use of the internet and VoIP service providers that allow internet telephony to be used by small and expanding businesses. As long as you have a good computer and a reliable internet connection, you can create your own phone system that fits the needs of your company.

You can send an internet fax in two ways:

1. Free internet faxing - You might be surprised, but free faxing is quite easy to perform. You don’t need a computer programmer, a sophisticated rig or a complex process to do so, since service providers really offer to let you send an internet fax for free. You need your document to be in digital file format and ready to be uploaded onto the service provider’s website. Finding a free fax service on the internet is quite easy. All you have to do is run a quick search and a host of free fax web pages are there for you to use.
   
    Before you can send your free fax, though, you need to take note of the following restrictions these web pages impose:
   
   • You can only send one or two faxes per day.
   • You aren’t given a fax number so receiving faxes is not possible through these web pages.
   • You can only send files in TIFF and PDF format. Uploading documents of different file formats may result in an unsuccessful fax or denial of the upload altogether.
   • You can only upload a limited number of attachments in small file increments.
   • You can’t send faxes to other countries.
   • You won’t get any notification that your fax was received properly by the recipient.
2. Premium fax service
   When you pay for your faxing, you immediately get a fax number that functions just like a dedicated fax line. People can ring this number and hear a fax tone over the line, signaling that you are ready to receive their fax. They can send their fax the traditional way, but your way of receiving is much different. The faxed document is sent to your email or an inbox provided to you by the VoIP firm.
   
   Advantages of paying for your faxing could be:
   
   • You’re given a large volume of faxes that can be sent and received each month.
   • You can send an internet fax in a wider selection of file formats such as DOC, DOCX, XLS, TXT, HTML, and JPEG as your attachments. You aren’t limited to TIFF and PDF anymore.
   • You can send faxes to other countries as long as you have the complete fax number of your recipient, country and area code included.
   • You can send more and larger files.
   • You can view, edit and choose which faxes to print from your email. This saves you from maintaining ink and paper for a fax machine.
   If you’re interested in sending an internet fax, the best way to begin is to use a free fax service.