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servers had been as soon as thought of commonplace gear in most enterprise places of work, however they’re all however out of date nowadays.
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 convey 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 modifications to your workplace communications setup is doing so at scale. This could be a actual nuisance with fax servers, because it takes cautious planning so that you simply don’t find yourself with some severely snarled communications.
Moreover, scaling a fax server typically requires a hefty funding in new know-how, together with extra fax boards, modems, and servers to take care of the elevated fax quantity transferring by your workplace.
On-line fax providers allow you to keep away from this concern completely, providing far smoother scalability with out the necessity for extra {hardware} investments. This makes cloud-based providers much more outfitted 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 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 kinds of gadgets we use right this moment, they’ll run into vital hurdles in relation to workplace communications.
Making an attempt to shoehorn a fax server into your small business operations can throw off your workflows or require you to give you workarounds to accommodate the antiquated know-how. On the identical time, it additionally requires you to run the danger 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 know-how requirements and protocols could be a problem for tax servers that’s simply not value taking over.
In distinction, many on-line options include a far better deal of flexibility, permitting customers to ship and obtain faxes by way of e mail, on-line platforms, and even apps. Staff can ship a fax from an iPhone, for instance, regardless of the place they’re.
On-line faxes are additionally saved centrally and will be accessed by your crew. This makes it a lot simpler to arrange and entry information. Distant employees 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 may eat up funds. And, as a result of this gear is ageing out of relevance, it’s not all the time potential for any outdated technician to service it — so that you in all probability must discover a specialist.
It is perhaps tempting to skirt this specific draw back by merely not sustaining your fax servers as a lot, however this could be 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 needs to be steady. Slight delays or issues end in faxes not being despatched or acquired.
On-line fax options sidestep this completely, 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 know-how is, the extra seemingly it’s been damaged into or hacked alongside the best way — and if not, it could nonetheless embody vulnerabilities that make it extra more likely to be compromised within the first place. Fax servers are not any exception to this rule, and folks have had a very long time to determine the way to hack them and exploit their vulnerabilities.
The unlucky fact is that transmitting delicate data over conventional telephone traces and unsecured networks will increase the danger of your knowledge being intercepted and utilized by hackers and scammers — and there’s not a complete lot you are able to do to mitigate that danger 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 data.
Moreover, relying on the service, many on-line fax options adjust to {industry} safety rules, and these options are additionally up to date commonly 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 commonplace substitute for fax servers. They permit companies to do all the identical issues they may do with a standard fax setup, solely with a lot better levels of safety and comfort.
Typically known as web faxing or digital faxing, on-line faxing works very like 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 particular person’s fax machine or on-line fax service.
The primary advantages of on-line fax options embody:
- Price-effectiveness: On-line fax providers often provide subscription or pay-as-you-go pricing, and it’s less expensive than having to purchase, preserve, and replace all that {hardware} and software program.
- Scalability: If it’s essential add one other line to your on-line fax service, all it’s a must 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 providers is “on-line.” Since the whole lot occurs over a community, you and your crew can entry faxes anyplace you might have an web connection.
- Safety: On-line fax providers are usually very safe, with encryption protocols and knowledge privateness measures. Relying on which service you go together with, you’ll be able to even discover choices that adjust to industry-specific safety rules, like HIPAA.
2. VoIP providers
Voice over Web Protocol (VoIP) providers allow you to make and obtain calls over the web as an alternative of over conventional telephone traces, they usually will also be used to ship faxes. The way in which it really works is by sending digital knowledge to a different particular person’s fax machine the place it could be transformed or translated again into analog alerts by way of their VoIP service or an analog phone adapter (ATA) that helps a fax machine learn it.
In contrast to a standard fax machine, a VoIP fax service gained’t routinely print out no matter it receives, however it can maintain it as a file in a cloud-based system, which suggests you’ll be able to entry it anyplace after which print it everytime you need.
The primary advantages of VoIP telephone providers embody:
- Price-effectiveness: Very similar to on-line fax providers, VoIP telephone providers usually run low-cost, and most work on a subscription mannequin that you would be able to simply improve or lower as wanted.
- Seamless integration: Since VoIP telephone providers achieve this many different issues than faxing, they make an excellent possibility for companies that wish to preserve their operations as built-in as potential. With VoIP telephone providers, your crew can entry their telephone service, faxes, doc administration, and extra multi function place.
- Superior options: VoIP telephone providers include a variety of superior options that make faxing simpler, with fax-to-email conversion being some of the helpful. This makes it so your faxes are despatched to your e mail, the place you’ll be able to even reply to them. Many VoIP telephone providers additionally provide on-line doc signing, which will be very handy if you happen to’re faxing issues like contracts.
It’s essential to notice that many VoIP telephone providers additionally present fax providers — however not all of them do. Do your analysis to ensure no matter service you think about has all of the performance you want.
3. Doc administration techniques
Doc administration techniques (DMS) aren’t particularly designed for faxing, however they’ll typically be used for it anyway, making them various to a fax server.
They work very equally to on-line fax providers in that you would be able to add a doc to the DMS after which ship it out as a digital fax. Faxes you obtain will also be despatched instantly into your DMS the place it may be categorized together with the remainder of your information.
The primary advantages of DMS embody:
- Comfort: In the event you’re already utilizing a DMS to handle your paperwork and it’s essential 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 instantly from the DMS, which signifies that you don’t have to fret about copying information over from a fax service or pulling information out of your DMS to ship by way of your fax service.
- Simple group: In the event you’ve already obtained 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 assume it’s one of the simplest ways for many places of work to deal with fax. There are too many higher choices on the market.
