Don’t trash that fax machine just yet
Sunday Nation By Sam Wambugu
Sunday, June 2 2013
Every day, thousands of businesses across the world transmit millions of documents through fax machines.
And while many people think that email and PDF documents have replaced fax machines, these “old-fashioned” machines still have many uses in the modern world.
Although businesses usually maintain some kind of fax capability, the technology has faced increasing competition from Internet-based alternatives. Fax machines still retain some advantages, particularly in the transmission of sensitive material which, if sent over the Internet unencrypted, may be vulnerable to interception.
With email, senders’ identities cannot be verified, traffic can be intercepted or sniffed, and an email signature isn’t necessarily legally binding. With a fax, a signature is as legal as if you were standing right in front of the person.
Granted, that over the past ten years, digital document transfer technologies have become popular with many people. However, this kind of technology has several significant limitations.
Many business and legal documents must be stamped and signed with a real signature. While digital documents can be a convenient choice for some people, there’s no standard way to sign digital documents.
Whereas the Kenya Communications Act of 2009 recognises advanced electronic signatures and electronic records as equal to written signatures and written (physical) records respectively, different organisations have competing standards for signing a digital document and there’s currently no standard agreed upon by all organisations.
Because of this, a digital signature that is valid at one business may not be valid at another business. In addition, this can make regulatory compliance a challenging prospect for many companies. While fax machines may be less convenient than digital document transfer technologies, they still have several benefits.
Because emails can house viruses and are a target for hackers, many companies have filters that scan and reroute messages directly to the junk mailbox. Some employees might wait and wait for an attachment that never comes — because it’s been blocked for being too large, poorly named or another reason.
Fax offers the benefit that a message won’t be filtered as “junk” by the network, and it also can’t print corrupted files. Naturally, other problems could occur, for example if someone grabs a fax intended for another colleague. However, as long as colleagues are only sending business-related materials and are honest with one another, this is unlikely to be a problem.
Moreover, there are several new technologies that combine the convenience of digital documents with the accessibility and simplicity of fax machines. With a virtual fax machine, you will be able to receive faxed documents on a computer.
As fax messages are received, they are automatically converted into a PDF file. This can make it very easy to keep track of different documents as a business or organisation receives copies of them.
The indispensability of faxing has prompted the creation of technologies that make how businesses communicate today easier. The solution came in the form of fax over Internet or email/fax technology, such as eFax. This gives businesses the capability to send and receive facsimiles via email.
By faxing documents online, it’s possible to combine the speed and convenience of digital technology with the tangible benefits of physical fax transfer systems. Further, facsimiles can now be sent and received anywhere through mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets as long as Internet connection is accessible.
So is fax better than email? Perhaps not. Ultimately, fax still has notable flaws and eventually will be replaced by encrypted email and attachments. In the meantime, though, fax can offer some benefits — and you now have a few reasons to keep your old machine around.