Why the Fax Machine Refuses To Die 835
snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia waxes befuddled on the ongoing existence of the fax machine. 'Consider what a fax machine actually is: a little device with a sheet feeder, a terrible scanning element, and an ancient modem. Most faxes run at 14,400bps. That's just over 1KB per second — and people are still using faxes to send 52 poorly scanned pages of some contract to one another. Over analog phone lines. Sometimes while paying long-distance charges! The mind boggles,' Venezia writes. 'If something as appallingly stupid as the fax machine can live on, it makes you wonder how we make progress at all. Old habits die hard. It just goes to show you: Bad technology generally isn't the problem; it's the people who persist in using that technology rather than embracing far superior alternatives.'"
It's for signatures (Score:5, Informative)
Simplicity wins. (Score:5, Informative)
I actually work for a certain fortune 500 company that produces laser printers, and while we are phasing a lot of our fax focus out, there just isn't the faith in email that there is in fax. With a fax, you have a physical copy ending up in an office that you know someone has received. There's no spam filter to worry about and you know that that fax is going to get to the right person a lot more than than email if you don't have that person's direct email. For something you have a physical copy of, fax is just a lot simpler. Until there are more printers out there that have email addresses built into them, we're going to be a ways off from replacing fax.
Send/recieve well over 100 per day (Score:5, Informative)
Pharmacist here. They are still in heavy use between us and the md offices, for a few reasons. E-Rx ins't always 2-way, so a refill request often has to be faxed. Many times we need to contact the MD office and they can't take a call. A fax gives them all the info, in a simple readable format to take care of later. Sometimes a hospital needs a patient profile for the last 6 months and it would take 30mins to explain it all over the phone, so it gets faxed.
Emailing HIPPA documents in not an option and I wouldn't use it even it was.
Re:It's convenience and security. (Score:3, Informative)
Sheet feed scanners, not a single sheet scanner.
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=634&name=Scanner-Document-Scanners [newegg.com]
$189-$1000
http://www.newegg.com/store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=351&Tpk=fax%20machine [newegg.com]
$49-$800
So your 300% more Sheet Feed Scanner still requires you to deal with the inherent limits to email attachment size, if the document requires a signature, you still have to print it. Fax machines work better with legal and business documents than email attachments.
That said, your cheap all-in-one scanner/printer/copiers are all garbage, in 11 years of supporting them, I've never seen one last a calendar year before failing.
Re:It's convenience and security. (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. Email is NOT secure. You don't know how many servers your email passes through or what they do with it, and you can't guarantee the receiver is protecting the information. Encrypted email is far harder to implement in your network of contacts than a fax machine. Even then, if public key vendors can be hacked/spoofed/compromised, then how can you say encrypted email on a private small business server won't be? Doctors pretty much are obligated to use fax or they will almost certainly end up violating HIPAA.
The IT industry has not been able to provide a superior or even equal solution to fax yet.
Re:It's for signatures (Score:5, Informative)
Your "stupid conclusion" seems to hold up just fine for the legal beagles in just about every company I've ever worked for. My current (and all previous) employer still uses fax machines for this very reason (although they have progressed to copy machines for sending and e-fax for receiving). My company processes hundreds, if not a few thousand, of them every week.
Check with any pharmacy or doctor. They all still use fax too. For the same reasons.
The first post on this thread (an actual first post that means something... I guess the kids are asleep) has a good point as well. When dealing with that much data, the cost per kB is a lot less over an old-fashioned phone line at 14k than a 5-10 GB image that's a PITA to create, send, and receive.
A FAX has a legal advantage (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fax " The original PUSH technology" (Score:0, Informative)
irregardless
regardless
Re:It's convenience and security. (Score:4, Informative)
Given a choice of clipping on to an office phone line from outside or intercepting their internet connection, I'll take the phone line. It's simple, quick, and the necessary connection is outside (or worst case, in a phone closet in a hallway, the latch can probably be jimmied in 5 seconds or less). If you wear a jumpsuit, hardhat, and a butt set nobody will even look at you.
Compare that to entering a NOC and rooting the router without a valid keycard.
Re:It's convenience and security. (Score:3, Informative)
A jpg pasted into a document and emailed isn't legally binding in the United States.
My work requires real signatures.
Re:They all work as fax machines too (Score:4, Informative)
One department here uses a fax machine as a scanner. They fax a server that then converts the fax to an email and sends it to them. Despite the fact that we now have network scanning capabilities that are far higher resolution and don't involve the charge of a phone call they insist on using this system because they're used to it. Another department transfers documents by printing them, then faxing them to another department that then scans them back in. To keep them them both on the same network server. I've explained till I'm blue in the face that they can just set up a shared area to transfer documents but they keep this system
Never underestimate human inertia. If something works, people will keep using it despite how awkward it might be. Bitching and whining all the time about its problems of course. But you try to change something and suddenly you may as well have driven over their puppy for all the reaction you get...