Wireless Fax Machines
Q: Are wireless fax machines completely wireless?
Some are, most are not. Most wireless fax machines eliminate all wires except the power cord and the one running to the phone jack. But you can fax over a wireless phone connection, with a bit of ingenuity, and cut even those wires.
One advantage of wireless fax machines is flexibility in office layout. You can place the fax machine near a phone jack and put the computers that use it just about anywhere. The fax machine becomes just another WiFi adapter on a wireless network. Wireless fax machines can be handy in trade show booths and other temporary setups.
Wireless capability in office machines is not cheap. It is often found only in the higher-priced multi-function devices of a manufacturer’s product line. A wireless fax machine may cost $50 more than an identical wired fax machine, which is a bit much to pay for a WiFi adapter.
Eliminating even the phone wire is possible. Ambitious people have set up their fax machines on cellular modems and even satellite phone dishes. But there is an easier way that simply uses your wireless smartphone.
MyFax.com is an email send/receive fax service. Install its application on your phone and you can fax any document stored on your phone. (Getting the document into the phone is another matter.) The MyFax application emails your document file to MyFax, which converts it to fax format and faxes it to the number you specify. You can receive faxes via a MyFax phone number and they will be emailed to your smartphone for reading.
Printing something off your smartphone while in a client’s office is one application of wireless fax. You can simply use MyFax or a similar service to fax your document to a nearby fax machine.
Most people simply need the physical placement flexibility of wireless fax machines. But a few can use the truly all-wireless faxing capabilities of a service such as MyFax.
Do you have a question about faxing? Send me your fax question.
