Fax2Mail: Definition & role for cloud telephony

Fax2Mail in an internet access router
Fax2Mail as a cloud service

Fax2Mail, often written as Fax-to-Mail, is a piece of software that allows faxes to be received in the form of emails. In general, the actual fax is attached to the email. Since faxes remain very popular, and are often used for sending documents in a legally secure form, the Fax2Mail facility is still important even in the modern age of digital communication. It combines modern methods of communication, such as emails, with vestiges of the analogue world, such as faxes. Fax2Mail can be installed directly into an internet router, into a telephone system or as a modern online cloud service.

Fax2Mail in an internet access router

Since verbal communications are mostly handled by Voice over IPs nowadays, modern internet access routers also function as powerful telephone systems. Many of these devices offer an integrated Fax2Mail facility. By entering a telephone number, they can be configured so as to be able of receiving faxes. When a fax arrives at this number, the router sends it as an attachment in an email to a previously defined email account in the form of an image file or a PDF document. There is no longer any need for a fax machine purely for the purposes of receiving faxes.

Fax2Mail as a cloud service

If the Fax-to-Mail facility is set up as a cloud service, the receiver does not require a Fax2Mail-capable router. The Fax2Mail service provides a telephone number for receiving faxes and converts incoming faxes sent to this number into image files. It then sends these files to preconfigured addressees. All the receiver requires is access to the internet and a device for receiving and displaying emails. Modern cloud telephone systems offer this Fax2Mail service as standard as one of many Unified Messaging services.

Thanks to this service, companies can provide fax numbers in foreign countries without actually having a telephone connection or a branch of the company in that particular country. The Fax2Mail facility is of particular interest to mobile workers who are often on the move but rely on receiving faxed messages.

Some solutions also offer the reverse facility. This facility is called Mail2Fax and is capable of converting incoming emails into faxes and sending them to a pre-determined fax number.