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Depricating Fax

By the 1980s fax had transformed our business life. It was cheap, fast and secure. With the move to IP telephony, regular fax transmissions could no longer be guaranteed to work reliably, so rather than offer an equivalent or better service, some government agencies and businesses began to withdraw fax service. This effectively pushed their customers back in time to ‘snail mail’. This is not OK.

By Kristin Kiewitz

Kristin Kiewitz, is a business analyst and researcher.

Fax Becomes Big

Before the introduction of the universal postal service in the late 1800s, the only way to send a message was to write it out on paper and send it by personal courier. Technology evolved and brought us the Telegraph, then Telex, and, by the mid 1900s, fax. Until recent years, sending messages by fax was a common way to communicate. It was easy, secure, and well liked.

Fax is Deprecated

Then came the move to IP networks and reliable fax transmission could no longer be assured. Our clients had regular complaints about fax becoming “finicky” and network and equipment providers decided to deprecate fax. This means official support was withdrawn and its use discouraged in favor of newer or better technology.

The expected way forward was that new technology would move in to replace fax, but this didn’t happen. While there are ways to deliver fax over current IP networks, none of these ways have proved to be universally popular.

With fax, we had security - the originating phone number, Caller ID and answer-back code. Apart from fax, there are methods to scan and send documents, including ways to certify the sender and protect content. However, most organisations are opting for the easier and cheaper solution of simply removing fax completely.

No Fax, No Email

Try communicating with government departments or many large corporations today. They have removed fax from their “contact us” menu and they are limiting e-mail from the public too. While email works, it’s not ideal as it does not certify the sender, everything is easily spoofed and therefore it is not a trusted communication. It’s also a source of spam.

Sometimes government departments or large corporations offer web-based forms that allow you to upload documents, but the offering is usually quite restrictive. This is useless if what you want to say and to whom is not an offered option.

One of our team recently had to update bank details registered with the UK tax authority. There was no web form to do that and the request he got (by mail) said to contact their call centre. Even that did not work – they wanted it “in writing”. A year ago, it would have been easy to send over by fax, but not any more. The only acceptable way was to write a physical letter and send it by mail – which, to the UK, can take weeks.

A Better Option

Common web-based forms can require authenticated login first, as with Banks and the Canada Revenue Agency. This certifies the sender. If the forms allow an attachment and a “send to” designation, then the message can be routed to the correct department or person. This would restore the ability to send the company a scanned and certified paper document instantly, from a known and authenticated sender. While not as easy as fax, it’s definitely a better way than pushing customers back in time to the postal service.

If you’d like to discuss better communications technology or processes, or to comment on this article, please email me at .

This article was published in the November 2024 edition of The TMC Advisor
- ISSN 2369-663X Volume:11 Issue:6

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