Fax – Fax To Email – Blog

Internet faxing offers big advantages and is very convenient in comparison to traditional fax machines; however it brings additional questions and possible obstacles that did not seem to exist before. One of those new problems is security. The traditional fax transmission can be considered “relatively secure” – the fax letter would generally follow this communication path: “sender machine -> sender telecom provider > recipient telecom provider > recipient machine”. We assume a certain level of trust with our telecom providers to not allow “information leaks” and normally they will not store anything except the traffic logs (who called who at specific times). 

How does it work with the Internet?

The fax to e-mail and e-mail to fax solutions have “extra steps” in the delivery process. For example if you are sending from a fax to e-mail service to a regular fax number, then the process is similar to the following: “sender  e-mail client -> sender e-mail server -> routing of the e-mail to the fax to e-mail server -> fax to e-mail server ->  telecom provider of the server -> recipient telecom provider -> recipient fax machine”. The receiving process is usually the same in the opposite direction. That are part of the communication path that should receive special attention is on the “routing of the e-mail to the fax to e-mail server”, since this includes many interconnects (routers, switches, etc.) that are transparent to both the sender and receiver.  We must be sure that nobody in is “sniffing” or altering this traffic.

The solution for the privacy of this information during the transmission between the sender of the e-mail and the Internet fax server (and vice versa) is the encryption of the information through TLS (transport layer security). The UnityFax.com e-mail servers do support TLS encryption and it is always enabled if the client supports it. This means that even if someone tried to sniff the traffic information, they would only see encrypted data, which is not useful.  If the client e-mail service is secure, it would provide a secure path between the  ”sender e-mail client -> fax to e-mail server”.

As soon as the e-mail is securely delivered to the fax to e-mail server, then it is converted to a fax letter and sent through a fax modem to the recipient machine with the help of telecom providers.  This provides a secure path similar to traditional faxing.

An alternative to using secure email is using a secure website.  By connecting to our SSL (secure socket layer) website, you bypass the whole email system and have direct secure access to our servers for both the sending and receiving of faxes.

UnityFax also provides a secure fax storage service. Unlike traditional fax communications (where the telecom providers only keep the traffic logs but not the transmitted data) the secure storage can keep copy of your inbound faxes so that you can recover them if needed. 

The UnityFax.com secure storage service is completely secure and is using a trusted SSL certificate issuer:

For fax letters which include very sensitive information, we provide an additional option to prevent storage:

Conclusion: Internet faxing should be consider secure if the proper methods are employed.

Sometimes you may encounter a situation when you have a paper document which you need to keep as an electronic copy and you do not have a document scanner nearby. This can become a hassle if you have to deal with these documents often. If however, you have a fax to e-mail account, then this is no longer a problem – you can easily scan your documents by sending a fax letter to your fax to e-mail number! The faxed documents will automatically appear as a digital PDF file in your email.

Even if you have a scanner it is not as easy and fast as it is to scan documents using a fax machine, especially if you have to use other peoples computers. You must scan the document in raw format to the computer software using the scanner. After that you must convert the scanned copy to specific format (like gif, png or jpeg) because the raw file size is usually very big and uncomfortable. Finally you have to send the document as attachment to your e-mail address, therefore Internet connection is required and if you do not use your personal computer – access to other peoples e-mail address too.

If you have an Internet fax number account, then scanning documents is very easy if you have access to a normal fax machine. All you have to do is to send the document to your fax to e-mail number and… that’s it. As soon as you send the fax, it will be converted to PDF or image file by the fax server and you will have it automatically sent to your e-mail almost immediately. This is very simple and fast way to accomplish the scan.

Increased resolution can also be obtained by sending the fax in fine, superfine or ultrafine mode.

Let’s briefly compare:

1. Using scanner (high quality color scans are possible):

• Scan the document;
• Convert it by some photo editing software to proper file format;
• Access Internet and to e-mail account from which you can send out in particular;
• Compose an e-mail to yourself with the file attached.

2. Using fax machine (commonly non-color and lower resolutions):

• Just send the document to your fax to e-mail number and you will have the document in your e-mail inbox. No computer and internet connection required!

Conclusion: Scanning documents by sending a fax to your fax to e-mail number is a very convenient way to scan regular text documents. It is much faster and simpler than using scanners and therefore it saves time and it is more comfortable. This is the only way to scan a document in electronic copy on places where no Internet connection is available and you have a fax machine. It is much more practical and environment-friendly than making a paper copy on copier too.

Did you sometimes encounter calling a number and get a “busy” signal in exchange? Of course that happens when the person that you are calling is already talking with another (third) person. The same can happen with faxing – the regular fax lines allow you to receive only one document at a time. When somebody wants to send to you a fax while you are already receiving one, then he will get the usual busy signal. This is completely normal because the fax machine cannot print two documents at the same time and also one phone line cannot receive two calls simultaneously.

There are many companies who deal with lots of faxes every day. The number of busy tones will increase proportionally to the increasing of the incoming fax volume. The obvious solution to that problem is to add second, third, etc fax lines with corresponding machines. Of course this is not very comfortable for the users and it is very expensive to maintain – you will have many fax numbers and many machines. Can we do something else to solve this situation?

The UnityFax “Multi Line” feature comes to the rescue from the busy signals! It allows you to receive multiple faxes simultaneously and keeping only one fax number. When it is enabled the “Multi Line” will map a second phone line to the existing number. If the fax number is already receiving a fax on the first line and a second call is received, then it will be forwarded to the second incoming line. That way both faxes will be processed by the fax server and will be sent to your e-mail address in PDF or image format. This is something that is not possible with the normal fax machines!

That’s not all – UnityFax provides not just one, but up to five (5+) additional lines! That means that the service can suit the needs of even the most high pressured fax numbers. For example when you are running an attractive promotional campaign this may make your fax line “hot” and many times “not responding” (busy) to the potential inquiries. Using the UnityFax “Multi Line” service it is no longer an issue! You will not let your customers get a busy tone when sending a fax letter to you!

The final question is: how to add the additional lines to your fax number? This is done through the UnityFax Administrative Control Panel. Just login to the “Manage account(s)” area on the website, click on the link with your fax number and go to “Services” from the top menu. There you must mark the checkbox near “Multi Line” and select how many (total) lines you wish to have on this number:

The drop down menu will let you choose from two to six lines (total) for the selected account fax number. Clicking on the “Update account services” button at the bottom of the page will make the additional lines available and active immediately. You can add additional lines to every fax number that you have in the account separately. Enjoy!