There are a lot of small-business owners and people who work at home and needs to be able to send and receive documents via a fax machine. Traditionally, that would mean buying or leasing a fax machine and paying for additional phone service. Nowadays, many technology-driven companies offer Internet-based virtual faxing services as an alternative.

Internet faxing is a hosted service, meaning you don't need to buy and install fax servers, modems, special hardware and software licenses, or maintaining an aging system. Instead, you subscribe to a third-party Internet faxing service that converts e-mails to faxes and faxes to e-mails for you. With Internet faxing, any document that can be attached to an email can be faxed to an analog fax machine. That includes Microsoft Word documents, PDF files and scanned images.

Fax services usually charge a monthly fee. These services typically assign fax numbers to customers so they can receive faxes from traditional fax machines. There are different levels of services that are being offered such as from accounts that can only receive faxes to unlimited local faxing. Some may even offer additional services like voice mail.

To reduce costs and minimize support issues, many corporations are choosing Internet faxing from service providers. Internet faxing solutions are highly scalable, accommodating seasonal demands without additional capital investments. Since you only pay for what you use, Internet faxing make it easy to meet customer and vendor needs for as little expense as necessary.

The following are simple steps you can follow in order to avail of fax services:

1.You sign up for the service.

2.The service assigns you a fax number and provides instructions for how to send a fax from an email program or a Web interface.

3.You send and receive faxes as attached documents via email.

4.The service bills you on a monthly or per-fax basis, depending on your service plan.

Procedures of sending and receiving faxes through these services works much like with a traditional fax machine. To send a fax:

1.You attach the document to an email message and address the message to the recipient's fax number. Depending on your service provider, you may add a domain name (for example: 18005551234@emailfaxes.com). The document can be a scan of a paper document or other types of documents, if the service supports them.

2.The service translates the attachment so that the recipient's fax machine can read it.

3.The service sends the data across the phone line.

4.The recipient's fax machine decodes the data and prints it.

To receive a fax:

1.The sender dials your fax number.

2.The fax machine translates the data and transmits it over the phone line.

3.The service receives the data and translates it into an image file.

4.The service sends the image file to your email address.

5.You open the email message and the attachment and view the file.

Indeed, technology is revolutionizing the way we communicate and do business.