A fax server is a bodily or digital server that’s used to handle the sending, receiving, and storage of faxes over a digital or analog community. Fax servers have been as soon as thought-about normal tools in most enterprise workplaces, however they’re all however out of date today.
As a substitute, there are actually many higher options available on the market, so there’s no must take care of fax servers and the complications they bring about within the first place.
4 causes to not use a fax server
1. Fax infrastructure is painful to scale
One of many hardest issues about making adjustments to your workplace communications setup is doing so at scale. This generally is a actual nuisance with fax servers, because it takes cautious planning so that you just don’t find yourself with some critically snarled communications.
Moreover, scaling a fax server typically requires a hefty funding in new expertise, together with extra fax boards, modems, and servers to take care of the elevated fax quantity transferring via your workplace.
On-line fax companies allow you to keep away from this subject fully, providing far smoother scalability with out the necessity for added {hardware} investments. This makes cloud-based companies much more geared up to accommodate a enterprise’s rising communication wants.
2. Restricted flexibility
Merely put, fax servers are solely nice at sending and receiving faxes. Which means that they’re not very helpful in trendy workplace communications the place individuals must ship and obtain messages throughout a wide range of platforms and gadgets.
Since fax servers aren’t designed to work together with the assorted sorts of gadgets we use at the moment, they will run into vital hurdles relating to workplace communications.
Making an attempt to shoehorn a fax server into your online business operations can throw off your workflows or require you to give you workarounds to accommodate the antiquated expertise. On the similar time, it additionally requires you to run the chance of dropping monitor of any doc that isn’t a part of your in any other case cloud-based system.
Lengthy story quick, sustaining compatibility with evolving expertise requirements and protocols generally is a problem for tax servers that’s simply not price taking over.
In distinction, many on-line options include a far larger deal of flexibility, permitting customers to ship and obtain faxes through e-mail, on-line platforms, and even apps. Workers can ship a fax from an iPhone, for instance, irrespective of the place they’re.
On-line faxes are additionally saved centrally and might be accessed by your group. This makes it a lot simpler to prepare and entry recordsdata. Distant staff can retrieve no matter they want with out having to return into the workplace.
3. Fax server upkeep prices
Since fax servers are hardware-dependent, they require ongoing upkeep, which might eat up finances. And, as a result of this tools is ageing out of relevance, it’s not all the time potential for any previous technician to service it — so that you most likely must discover a specialist.
It is likely to be tempting to skirt this explicit draw back by merely not sustaining your fax servers as a lot, however this generally is a pricey mistake. Downtime and system failures can simply disrupt enterprise operations and incur extra prices for troubleshooting and repairs.
In spite of everything, fax doesn’t require a ton of bandwidth, however the connection must be steady. Slight delays or issues end in faxes not being despatched or acquired.
On-line fax options sidestep this fully, as they don’t require any devoted {hardware}, they usually provide predictable subscription-based pricing fashions with minimal upfront funding.
4. Safety dangers
The older a expertise is, the extra seemingly it’s been damaged into or hacked alongside the way in which — and if not, it could nonetheless embrace vulnerabilities that make it extra more likely to be compromised within the first place. Fax servers aren’t any exception to this rule, and folks have had a very long time to determine how you can hack them and exploit their vulnerabilities.
The unlucky fact is that transmitting delicate info over conventional telephone traces and unsecured networks will increase the chance of your knowledge being intercepted and utilized by hackers and scammers — and there’s not an entire lot you are able to do to mitigate that threat with conventional fax servers.
After all, cloud-based and on-line fax options have their safety vulnerabilities too, however in addition they have superior safety protocols and use trendy encryption strategies to safeguard info.
Moreover, relying on the service, many on-line fax options adjust to {industry} safety rules, and these options are additionally up to date repeatedly in response to rising threats.
Three higher alternate options than an in-house fax server
1. On-line fax options
On-line fax options are the present gold normal substitute for fax servers. They permit companies to do all the identical issues they might do with a conventional fax setup, solely with a lot larger levels of safety and comfort.
Generally referred to as web faxing or digital faxing, on-line faxing works very similar to sending an e-mail. You merely open up the software program or platform, choose the doc you wish to ship, after which click on a button to ship it to a different individual’s fax machine or on-line fax service.
The primary advantages of on-line fax options embrace:
- Value-effectiveness: On-line fax companies normally provide subscription or pay-as-you-go pricing, and it’s less expensive than having to purchase, keep, and replace all that {hardware} and software program.
- Scalability: If it’s essential to add one other line to your on-line fax service, all it’s important to do is let your supplier know. There’s no want to put in extra {hardware} or purchase new software program.
- Flexibility: The key phrase in on-line fax companies is “on-line.” Since all the pieces occurs over a community, you and your group can entry faxes wherever you’ve got an web connection.
- Safety: On-line fax companies are usually very safe, with encryption protocols and knowledge privateness measures. Relying on which service you go along with, you may even discover choices that adjust to industry-specific safety rules, like HIPAA.
2. VoIP companies
Voice over Web Protocol (VoIP) companies allow you to make and obtain calls over the web as an alternative of over conventional telephone traces, they usually can be used to ship faxes. The best way it really works is by sending digital knowledge to a different individual’s fax machine the place it could be transformed or translated again into analog indicators through their VoIP service or an analog phone adapter (ATA) that helps a fax machine learn it.
Not like a conventional fax machine, a VoIP fax service received’t mechanically print out no matter it receives, however it’ll maintain it as a file in a cloud-based system, which suggests you may entry it wherever after which print it everytime you need.
The primary advantages of VoIP telephone companies embrace:
- Value-effectiveness: Very like on-line fax companies, VoIP telephone companies usually run low-cost, and most work on a subscription mannequin that you could simply improve or lower as wanted.
- Seamless integration: Since VoIP telephone companies accomplish that many different issues than faxing, they make a terrific possibility for companies that wish to hold their operations as built-in as potential. With VoIP telephone companies, your group can entry their telephone service, faxes, doc administration, and extra multi function place.
- Superior options: VoIP telephone companies include a variety of superior options that make faxing more practical, with fax-to-email conversion being probably the most helpful. This makes it so your faxes are despatched to your e-mail, the place you may even reply to them. Many VoIP telephone companies additionally provide on-line doc signing, which might be very handy in the event you’re faxing issues like contracts.
It’s necessary to notice that many VoIP telephone companies additionally present fax companies — however not all of them do. Do your analysis to ensure no matter service you take into account has all of the performance you want.
3. Doc administration methods
Doc administration methods (DMS) aren’t particularly designed for faxing, however they will typically be used for it anyway, making them various to a fax server.
They work very equally to on-line fax companies in that you could add a doc to the DMS after which ship it out as a digital fax. Faxes you obtain can be despatched straight into your DMS the place it may be categorized together with the remainder of your recordsdata.
The primary advantages of DMS embrace:
- Comfort: Should you’re already utilizing a DMS to handle your paperwork and it’s essential to ship faxes, it simply is sensible to make use of the identical platform to do each capabilities.
- Constructed-in integration: Faxes are despatched and acquired straight from the DMS, which implies that you don’t have to fret about copying recordsdata over from a fax service or pulling recordsdata out of your DMS to ship through your fax service.
- Straightforward group: Should you’ve already received hierarchy in your DMS, faxes will match proper in, without having to create one other course of.
I’ve nothing in opposition to fax servers personally, I simply don’t suppose it’s the easiest way for many workplaces to deal with fax. There are too many higher choices on the market.
