Send Faxes by Cell Phone with Your Online Fax Service
Funny, but sometimes technology pundits and science writers forget to tell us when
one of those great breakthroughs we have been waiting for actually happens. There has been a lot of talk in the last decade or so about the coming digital convergence, and how all manner of communications channels will, well, converge! It may not be as newsworthy as celebrity gossip, but the fact that all cell phone services are now digital really did help that elusive convergence happen in the here and now. It means that right here, right now, you have a great mobile tool to use with your online fax service.Before mobile phone service was digitized, sending a fax via your cell phone was more than a bit complicated. Dealing with analog circuits was complicated, period, but other communications advances like faster networks and more powerful phones have helped considerably. By leveraging some of the features of your phone with those of your online fax service, you really do have a virtual office in your hands.
What you need
In addition to the phone, of course, you will need e-mail access (with a mail app or via a Web browser) as well as an online fax account. It is dead simple getting one of those, and there are a number of leading firms from which to choose. Make sure you know how much online faxing your firm really needs before choosing a plan, as the costs vary dramatically. You can get bare bones service for low or no cost (if you don't mind ads on your cover sheets), or you can get fee-based monthly and even annual plans that work out to pennies per page, if you use that much. Get the right fit, and if need be, try out the service with a company that will give you a refund after, say, 30 days if it doesn't work out.
Naturally, you are not going to pull off online faxing unless your cell phone plan includes Internet access, so get it if you need it. Your phone also needs a camera for this to work, and most phones made in the last couple of years have them, except for some stripped down throwaway models sold in convenience stores. (Some low-price phones now have them, too.) The better the camera, the better the results of your cell phone faxing.
How to proceed
Put the document(s) that you want to fax flat on a well-lit surface. Make certain you fully frame the document in the viewfinder or the phone's image display. You may need to take several shots depending on the size of the document and the distance from which you are snapping your pics. Phone camera quality varies considerably, so in addition to getting good light and good distance, ensure that you are holding the camera steady for best results. Your phone camera may even have adjustment tools, so use the highest resolution and largest framing options (full screen). If there is a zoom lens, experiment with it to get the best possible shots, remembering that you may have to take more shots if you take ones that are close up.
You can also improve the quality of camera photos to near-scanned quality with one of the Web applications made for the purpose (Qipit was an early entrant in the field). Most are free for the using after signing up with a valid e-mail address. Whether on your phone itself or at the online image service, you will want to convert your document to a PDF (Portable Document Format) file. This will be easier for the various hardware and software tools along the way (phone service, online fax service, recipient's fax machine) to deal with.
Make the call
Create a new e-mail and add the PDF file as an attachment, just as you would do at your desk. If there are several attachments, and the involved services allow this, attach them all. If not, send a series of e-mails, correctly labeled, with one attachment each. You want to ensure that the recipient can put the multi-part document back together again. Send the e-mail as you normally would via your online fax service. The e-mail(s) will be processed and the resulting fax(es) will come out of the recipient's fax machine.
Why not just send an e-mail? The answer is that not everyone has e-mail, especially if you do business overseas. Fax machines still number in the hundreds of millions, so being able to reach them from your office, and now your mobile phone, could be a very smart business move. Perhaps one day everyone will dispense with faxing, but honestly, it will not be any time soon. You should be prepared to use online faxing in every possible way that can give you an edge in a competitive world economy.
Send Faxes by Cell Phone with Your Online Fax Service
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