Phone line vs Digital Fax?

[Jordan Scott]

Are phone line fax machines obsolete? How many of you use a digital fax serverice through the computer?

 

[Mike Boyd]

Not for my fax, but I just purchased an internet telephone service. Called MagicJack. The router is about 1.5 inches by 2.5 inches and plugs into any USP port. Cost: $39.95 for the router and $20 per YEAR for all telephone service including local and long distance anywhere in the US and Canada. Only problem is there is no phone book listing. I only use it for outgoing calls. It even includes voice mail.

 

[CANative]

I'm still on copper line all the way to Hopland (about 6 miles) and there are only about 8 other customers along this line. So ATT doesn't get too worked up over outages. A couple of months ago my fax line went down and I REALLY needed to be able to get faxes so I signed up for eFax. You get a new fax number for this but you can have your regular fax number forwarded to it so you don't have to advertise a new fax number. It works great and I love getting faxes by email. Print what I want, delete what I don't. Saves paper and toner. I get a certain number of incoming at the monthly fee so I need to go back and review the terms.

 

[Michigan CG]

www.myfax.com

 

[Mztk1]

I use Green Fax, it was cheaper than efax or myfax when I signed up about 5 or 6 years ago. I like it a lot. I get so many duplicate faxes and unnecessary notes that it saves me a ton of paper, and its cheap.

I use Vonage for the regular office line. Like Mike, there are no phone book ads, but in all my years of appraising I've never advertised and have never been listed in the phone book, so I guess I don't know what I am missing.

 

[LadybugLover]

We use myfax.com - when the drum on our fax machine needed replacing, and it was $150 to replace, we figured there must be a better way to get faxes - We kept the old fax machine for outgoing faxes, which we rarely use, but get all incoming through the computer - much better because we can pick up faxes anytime - don't have to worry about toner, paper, stopping by the office to retrieve the fax -

Mary

 

[Flakey]

I was using Callwave for internet fax service. It was about $9.00 per month to receive faxes only. Without notice, they raised it to $12.00 per month but you could send faxes. I reviewed the number of faxes per year (other than junk) I received and decided it was not cost effective. None of my clients have balked at emailing instead. I put the fax machine in the same closet where my telephone, typewriter, instant camera, postage scales and double sided tape live. Pretty soon, I gonna put the printer in there too.

 

[RSW]

I have two lines through Comcast. Ditigal Voice. My second line only costs $10/month. It is a good deal and I don't have to change my number.

 

[Couch Potato]

I use MyFax for paperless fax via a toll-free number ($10 a month) and MagicJack for low cost phone service ($20 a year for unlimited nationwide calling when you extend service to 5 years.) I have not had a traditional phone line for personal or business use of any kind since 2001.

 

[c w d]

I'm a big proponent of going digital. However, I would not depend solely on my internet connection for everything. Since some clients just fax over an order I would suggest keeping your fax and at least one phone line copper. Use a fax server and IP PBX to wrap both digital and analog capabilities into a seamless system. The PBX will make the determination to make your long distance calls over your ip phone accounts and your local calls over either analog or ip. Same thing with the fax.

That is unless you can also afford a backup internet connection through a different service provider. But then, we're appraisers. That would just be silly to expect we'd be able to afford that kind of set up.