The simple answer: nothing yet can replace it.  Fax has a number of advantages.  It is easy to use. Its visual content allows for quick understanding and extraction of information.  It provides improved legal authenticity of the content.  It is HIPAA compliant. Many industries such as healthcare, finance, and legal rely on fax for daily operations. One study estimates that over 17 billion documents were sent by fax in 2019.

Fax is a very secure technology. It uses the telephone network to transmit documents and requires peer-to-peer direct connectivity prior to transmission of data. This means that nothing gets transmitted until the outbound fax transmission has a secure and direct connection with the receiving fax device.

According to a recent IDC report, 25% of major organizations polled choose fax over email because it lowers their risk of breaking data protection requirements. Another 28% favor fax because it facilitates document tracking and offers information regarding transmission success or failure.

One example of this simplicity is the confirmation page. A confirmation page is a document that confirms your party has received your message. This piece of evidence provides legal protection in some instances and is a useful way to keep a paper trail of your business interactions. This is because the page displays valuable information like sender and receiver fax numbers and the date and time of message transmission.

Traditional fax used Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). POTS is an analog-based phone line implemented over twisted-pair copper wires. Its service is provided directly by the local telephone company. Regulatory changes have resulted in Telco providers decommissioning these lines rapidly or raising their prices.

T.38 Fax.  Modern phone systems use VoIP (Voice over IP) technology. T.38 is an innovative ITU-T standard protocol that revolutionizes the way we handle traditional faxes by enabling their transmission over IP-based phone systems and networks. By facilitating real-time support for Group 3 fax through modern VoIP technology, T.38 ensures that faxes can be seamlessly sent and received, effectively bridging the gap between old-school fax communication and cutting-edge telephony.

Smooth Fax Transmissibility: T.38 fax allows for the same fax transmissibility over internet protocol as traditional telephone networks, albeit with more advanced features.

Reliability: It’s considered more reliable than PSTN faxing as it incorporates a backup, or redundancy, in addition to error correction and fax retransmission capabilities.

Reduced Costs: This form of faxing is more cost-effective than sending faxes over traditional analog phone lines.

Compatibility: T.38 fax also maintains compatibility with existing fax machines while being able to leverage the advantages of IP packet networks.