Fax modem
Encyclopedia
A fax modem enables a computer to transmit and receive documents as fax
es. A fax modem is like a data modem but is designed to transmit and receive documents to and from a fax machine or another fax modem. Some, but not all, fax modems do double duty as data modems. As with other modem
s, fax modems can be internal or external. Internal fax modems are often called fax boards.
In the early 1990s small business PCs commonly had a PC-based fax/modem card and fax software (typically WinFax
Pro). Lrgely replaced by E-mail
, PC-based faxing with a fax/modem declined at the turn of the century. Where faxing from a PC is required there are a number of Internet-based faxing
alternatives. Where businesses still had one or more traditional fax machines churning out pages, they were usually outnumbered by PCs processing E-mail.
access and software, or use a service similar to printing from a PC or sending an E-mail message.
Fax integration is available in unified communications
(e.g. E-mail, Voice Mail and Fax managed together), in a number of Hosted PBX products where standard features allow users to send a fax by using the fax phone number as the address of a E-mail message, and receive incoming faxes via E-mail with the Fax content presented as a PDF attachment.
Medical systems continuted to use this technology heavily, but many home users have dropped the use of fax modems in favor of high speed internet.
Fax
Fax , sometimes called telecopying, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material , normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device...
es. A fax modem is like a data modem but is designed to transmit and receive documents to and from a fax machine or another fax modem. Some, but not all, fax modems do double duty as data modems. As with other modem
Modem
A modem is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data...
s, fax modems can be internal or external. Internal fax modems are often called fax boards.
In the early 1990s small business PCs commonly had a PC-based fax/modem card and fax software (typically WinFax
WinFax
WinFax is a Microsoft Windows-based software product designed to let computers equipped with fax-modems to communicate directly to stand-alone fax machines, or other similarly equipped computers.-History:...
Pro). Lrgely replaced by E-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, PC-based faxing with a fax/modem declined at the turn of the century. Where faxing from a PC is required there are a number of Internet-based faxing
Internet fax
Internet fax uses the Internet to receive and send faxes.Internet faxing, "e-Fax" or "online faxing" is a general term which refers to sending a document facsimile using the Internet, rather than using only phone networks with a fax machine.Depending on the specific method/implementation ,...
alternatives. Where businesses still had one or more traditional fax machines churning out pages, they were usually outnumbered by PCs processing E-mail.
PC faxing
Computer users may set up a PC fax/modem with card, telephone lineTelephone line
A telephone line or telephone circuit is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system...
access and software, or use a service similar to printing from a PC or sending an E-mail message.
Fax integration is available in unified communications
Unified communications
Unified communications is the integration of real-time communication services such as instant messaging , presence information, telephony , video conferencing, data sharing , call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified...
(e.g. E-mail, Voice Mail and Fax managed together), in a number of Hosted PBX products where standard features allow users to send a fax by using the fax phone number as the address of a E-mail message, and receive incoming faxes via E-mail with the Fax content presented as a PDF attachment.
Medical systems continuted to use this technology heavily, but many home users have dropped the use of fax modems in favor of high speed internet.