Sending A Fax?

[Roger Shackelton]

I Have A New Computer With Windows 8.1
I'm Trying To Find Out How To Send A Fax. ??

Roger

[Howard Parker]

The easiest thing to do is to upload it to a no cost/low cost service like efax!

No software or modem to worry about.

regards,

h

[Jack Stoner]

Computer fax, except a service as Howard mentions, is just about gone. Many "all in one" printers have fax capability, that will work with a standard telephone line.

[Richard Sinkler]

What we only have internet service on our phone line and not a voice line?

[Howard Parker]

Richard, if I understand your question, you upload your document to the efax server with your browser, give it a destination fax number & away it goes.

h

[Jack Stoner]

If you have a broadband connection for your Internet, such as DSL, Cable, that is separate from the phone line.

If you still have dial-up (most do not) then you have a standard phone line and modem. But Fax programs for PC's are few and far between anymore. Windows 7 does not include a Fax program like XP did. But back when XP was introduced the most common internet connection was a dial-up modem that also had fax capabilities (and some even had voice capability).

[Richard Sinkler]

I have DSL (AT&T Uverse - I assume that's DSL), and the router is plugged into the regular telephone outlet. It's the only jack other than the one in the bedroom. They never did come into the house to do anything, so anything they did must have been at the pole or a box on the house somewhere. I only pay for internet and not a voice line. Never occurred to me to try a phone plugged into the jack. I'm sure it wouldn't work.

Of course, with email and all, I have only had to fax something once (at home) in the last 10 or 15 years.

[Wiz Feinberg]

You must have a dial tone from the phone company in order to use a fax machine. DSL/UVerse alone does not provide a dial tone. You would have to also subscribe to the AT&T telephone service. If you did subscribe, you would have a landline phone number and be billed monthly for it, by AT&T.

You will either have to pay to use eFax, or take the paperwork to a nearby phone store and ask if they send faxes. It might only cost a buck per page, or less, depending on if the recipient is toll free, long distance, or local.

[Richard Sinkler]

I almost never need to send a fax, so I just go to a UPS store or someplace like that.

[Dave Potter]

I have DSL (AT&T Uverse - I assume that's DSL), and the router is plugged into the regular telephone outlet. It's the only jack other than the one in the bedroom. They never did come into the house to do anything, so anything they did must have been at the pole or a box on the house somewhere. I only pay for internet and not a voice line. Never occurred to me to try a phone plugged into the jack. I'm sure it wouldn't work.

I'm amazed that there's anybody left anymore with an absolute requirement for fax, what with email, epay, e-this, e-that. Fax is last century technology, that's for sure.

It's been so long ago, I don't remember all of it, but DSL is on the same wires as the phone. The data is superimposed on the talk information, and you need a little isolator (forgot the real name) at the phone connection to keep DSL interference out of the phone.

Phone and DSL are enabled/disabled at phone company distribution points located throughout the service area, not at the point of service. There's a technical requirement for DSL that you have to be not more than a given distance from the servicing distribution point, maybe 5 miles, I don't remember. But if phone wiring is already present at the house, there's nothing installers need to do there to make DSL happpen. They just make the appropriate change in their company computer system, and it happens. Same thing for phone.

If you're not paying for phone service each month, there won't be any service in your home phone jack. I'm using satellite internet, and recently dropped my landline phone (cellphone does fine - why pay for both?), so there's NOTHING on my phone jack.

[Jack Stoner]

There is two ways the Telco can connect/enable DSL data service. They can enable it on the wireline pair and give the customer "filters" to use with voice telephones. Or they can install the "splitter" at the Telco demarc box outside the residence and use the second wire pair (Yellow/Black) for data. This requires rewiring the Telco RJ11 jack (reversing the Red/Green wires with the Yellow/Black) so the DSL modem works properly. With this method the filters are not needed inside the residence as it is "filtered" in the Telco Demarc Box.

I still have a "landline" (actually provided by my cable company) as I have an alarm system that requires that and my wife hates cell phones and refuses to use my cell phone and wants the conventional telephone service. I have Verizon Cell service and its mostly 1 bar at my residence, and on rare occasions 2 bars in some areas. Other cell phone companies are worse than Verizon in my residence area. The last time my brother visited, he has AT&T and had to go outside to use his cell phone.

[Dave Potter]

Having only had DSL once, years ago, ours was the 2-wire method with filters - hadn't heard about the other one, but, 2-wire/4-wire - not substantially different.

Regarding landlines, they're like Firewire - on the way out. The telcos don't like to see people dropping their landlines, since it's revenue. But they're not even needed for home security monitoring anymore. Another reason I dropped our landline is because we switched to cellular security monitoring.

Disabling a home security system hard-wired callout capability is trivially simple - just snip the telco wires outside the house. The siren will still go off, but thieves can get in and out well before the cops come to fill out their report, if they ever do at all. And the icing on the cake is that even with cellular, our security monitoring is much cheaper than our previous wired monitoring with a different company - around $18/mo. If you live where cell service is marginal, you're really missing out.