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Fax servers had been as soon as thought-about customary gear in most enterprise workplaces, however they’re all however out of date today.
As a substitute, there are actually many higher options in the marketplace, 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 simply don’t find yourself with some severely snarled communications.
Moreover, scaling a fax server usually requires a hefty funding in new know-how, together with extra fax boards, modems, and servers to take care of the elevated fax quantity shifting via your workplace.
On-line fax providers allow you to keep away from this situation fully, providing far smoother scalability with out the necessity for added {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 fashionable workplace communications the place individuals must ship and obtain messages throughout quite a lot of platforms and units.
Since fax servers aren’t designed to work together with the assorted varieties of units we use at this time, they will run into important hurdles in relation to workplace communications.
Attempting to shoehorn a fax server into your corporation operations can throw off your workflows or require you to give you workarounds to accommodate the antiquated know-how. On the similar 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 generally is a problem for tax servers that’s simply not price taking up.
In distinction, many on-line options include a far larger deal of flexibility, permitting customers to ship and obtain faxes by way of electronic 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 could be accessed by your workforce. This makes it a lot simpler to prepare and entry recordsdata. 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 might eat up finances. And, as a result of this gear is getting older out of relevance, it’s not at all times doable for any outdated technician to service it — so that you in all probability 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 secure. Slight delays or issues lead to faxes not being despatched or obtained.
On-line fax options sidestep this fully, as they don’t require any devoted {hardware}, they usually supply predictable subscription-based pricing fashions with minimal upfront funding.
4. Safety dangers
The older a know-how is, the extra probably it’s been damaged into or hacked alongside the best way — and if not, it might nonetheless embrace vulnerabilities that make it extra prone 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 easy methods to hack them and exploit their vulnerabilities.
The unlucky reality is that transmitting delicate info over conventional telephone strains 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 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 fashionable 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 frequently 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 customary alternative for fax servers. They permit companies to do all the identical issues they may do with a standard fax setup, solely with a lot larger levels of safety and comfort.
Generally known as web faxing or digital faxing, on-line faxing works very like sending an electronic 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:
- Price-effectiveness: On-line fax providers normally supply 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 that you must 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 every little thing occurs over a community, you and your workforce can entry faxes wherever you will 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 along with, you possibly can 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 a substitute of over conventional telephone strains, they usually will also 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 might 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.
Not like a standard fax machine, a VoIP fax service gained’t robotically print out no matter it receives, however it is going to maintain it as a file in a cloud-based system, which implies you possibly can entry it wherever after which print it everytime you need.
The primary advantages of VoIP telephone providers embrace:
- 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 may simply improve or lower as wanted.
- Seamless integration: Since VoIP telephone providers achieve this many different issues than faxing, they make an awesome choice for companies that wish to hold their operations as built-in as doable. With VoIP telephone providers, your workforce can entry their telephone service, faxes, doc administration, and extra multi functional place.
- Superior options: VoIP telephone providers include a variety of superior options that make faxing simpler, with fax-to-email conversion being one of the crucial helpful. This makes it so your faxes are despatched to your electronic mail, the place you possibly can even reply to them. Many VoIP telephone providers additionally supply on-line doc signing, which could be very handy for those who’re faxing issues like contracts.
It’s vital to notice that many VoIP telephone providers additionally present fax providers — however not all of them do. Do your analysis to verify no matter service you contemplate has all of the performance you want.
3. Doc administration methods
Doc administration methods (DMS) aren’t particularly designed for faxing, however they will usually be used for it anyway, making them a great different to a fax server.
They work very equally to on-line fax providers in that you may add a doc to the DMS after which ship it out as a digital fax. Faxes you obtain will also be despatched immediately into your DMS the place it may be categorized together with the remainder of your recordsdata.
The primary advantages of DMS embrace:
- Comfort: In the event you’re already utilizing a DMS to handle your paperwork and that you must ship faxes, it simply is sensible to make use of the identical platform to do each features.
- Constructed-in integration: Faxes are despatched and obtained immediately from the DMS, which signifies that you don’t have to fret about copying recordsdata over from a fax service or pulling recordsdata out of your DMS to ship by way of your fax service.
- Straightforward group: In the event you’ve already received a great 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 one of the best ways for many workplaces to deal with fax. There are too many higher choices on the market.