Information Technology 
No Comments Switch to Fax 2.0 and be Green!
Fax machines have been a part of business life since the 80′s. For a single function technology that sends documents via telephone line, it is very long-lived. It has survived emails and Internet in general. Now when social media trends to replace emails, fax is still going strong.
Yet, keeping a dedicated line and maintaining a machine with lots of paper can get fairly expensive and inefficient (think about all the fax spam). In recent years some innovative fax to email / email to fax solution has gained popularity. I call them Fax 2.0. Essentially these services will give you fax numbers – and convert faxes received to emails, and vice versa (take your emails and fax them out). Here are a few good choices:
1. Peopleline Fax i-Line (PC) – $6.95
At < $7, it’s the lowest cost provider I have seen. Peopleline is a local Vancouver company and its customer service is prompt and friendly. You’ll get unlimited local faxing with this plan, all you need is your PC, email and Internet connection.
2. Telus Internet Fax Pro – $14.95
Telus has kept this service fairly low profile to avoid fighting with its own dedicated fax line business (which costs $35+ per line, fax machine extra). However, at $14.95 this service is not only more cost effective, it also offer additional benefits. For example, you can choose between local or toll-free number. Includes 100 sent pages and 200 receiving pages. Possibly more saving by bundling with other Telus services.
3. MyFax.com – $10
MyFax.com is very similar to Telus. It offers toll-free number as well. For $10 per month you can 500 sent or received pages. It also offer free fax to 41 countries such as UK, Australia, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Works with iPhone. What a deal! It’s powered by Protus, an Ottawa company.
Any of these options gives you a great reason to ditch your old office fax machine and save $100′s every year. It’s also more private since faxes arrives in your private email box, not an open office table. You’ll save money, paper and the environment all at the same time!
If you need a good quality scanner for sending out hand-written or signed documents, I’ve heard very good things about the Fujitsu S1500 scanner.