Of course, originally the fax machine was a much speedier means of communication than snail mail and was a relative revolution of sending and receiving documents but let's take a look at what has happened since its inception.

First of all, the pace of life has moved on somewhat. Now we have email, we expect communication to be instant and private. Most offices will have one shared fax machine and unless you are hovering over it, there's a good chance that your documents will sit on it for anyone and everyone to see when passing by until you are able to retrieve them.

Should you want to send a fax communication you can be quite sure that there will be a queue. If you are in a big office the queue for the fax machine is about as comfortable as the queue for the ladies at an event where no-one knows each other. Everybody is shuffling from one foot to the other making small talk and killing time that they know could be better spent elsewhere.

And when you finally get there what do you find? A back log of faxes waiting to come in and that can't be printed because the ink cartridge has run out. So, you scoot off to the stationary cupboard to get a new one and spend another wasted forty minutes changing the cartridge, twenty minutes waiting for the back log to clear and then what feels like an age sending your own fax.

Of course, most offices will now be functioning with mainly email but this doesn't apply to everyone. Some offices still like to use the trusty old fax machine and you have no choice to maintain one yourself in order to receive them. So, what can you do to speed things along and ensure your communications stay private?

There are companies that offer a fax to email service. What is this I hear you ask? Well, a fax to email service is where your faxes will be directed towards a different middleman. They will then convert that into an email that will be sent to your requested address. So, what is the point of that?

A fax to email service ensures that all your communications stay private. Nobody else sees them while they are sat on the fax waiting for collection. You do not have to miss any important communications as you can pick up faxes that have been converted to emails while you are away from the office providing you have internet access, such as those days when you want to work from home.

You have no concerns about running out of ink or ink smudges making your mail unreadable. You have no concerns that your letter will fly through the machine and on to the floor or slide down the back of the desk behind the fax machine never to be seen again. A fax to email service will release you from many office based worries and leave you free to let others wear away the carpet waiting to send and receive their mail. In fact, when you look at fax machines and the way they work compared to email today, they look positively archaic.