A fax modem enables a computer to transmit and receive documents as
fax
Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...
es on a
telephone line
A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit industrywide) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system. It is designed to reproduce speech of a quality that is understandable. It is the physical wire or ot ...
. A fax modem is like a data modem but is designed to transmit and receive documents to and from a fax machine or another fax modem. Some, but not all, fax modems do double duty as data modems. As with other
modem
A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...
s, fax modems can be internal or external. Internal fax modems are often called fax boards.
In the early 1990s small business PCs commonly had a PC-based fax/modem card and fax software (typically
WinFax
WinFax (also known as WinFax PRO) is a discontinued Microsoft Windows-based software product designed to let computers equipped with fax-modems communicate directly to stand-alone fax machines, or other similarly equipped computers.
History
The pr ...
Pro). Largely replaced by
email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...
, PC-based faxing with a fax/modem declined at the turn of the century. Where faxing from a PC is required there are a number of
Internet-based faxing alternatives. Where businesses still had one or more traditional fax machines churning out pages, they were usually outnumbered by PCs processing E-mail.
PC faxing
Computer users may set up a PC fax/modem with card,
telephone line
A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit industrywide) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system. It is designed to reproduce speech of a quality that is understandable. It is the physical wire or ot ...
access and software. A special
printer driver
In computers, a printer driver or a print processor is a piece of software on a computer that converts the data to be printed to a format that a printer can understand. The purpose of printer drivers is to allow applications to do printing withou ...
may be included to allow treating a fax modem as a printer. Fax integration is available in
unified communications
Unified communications (UC) is a business and marketing concept describing the integration of enterprise communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice (including IP telephony), mobility features (including ...
(''e.g. E-mail, Voice Mail and Fax managed together''), in a number of
Hosted PBX
A business telephone system is a multiline telephone system typically used in business environments, encompassing systems ranging in technology from the key telephone system (KTS) to the private branch exchange (PBX).
A business telephone syst ...
products where standard features allow users to send a fax by using the fax phone number as the address of a E-mail message, and receive incoming faxes via E-mail with the Fax content presented as a
PDF attachment.
Medical systems continue to use this technology into the 21st century, but many home and business users dropped the use of fax modems in favor of
high speed internet
Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Internet ...
.
Illustrations
See also
*
Fax
Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...
*
Fax demodulator
*
Fax server
A fax server is a system installed in a local area network (LAN) server that allows computer users whose computers are attached to the LAN to send and receive fax messages.
Alternatively the term ''fax server'' is sometimes used to describe a pr ...
*
Internet fax
Internet fax, e-fax, or online fax is the use of the internet and internet protocols to send a fax (facsimile), rather than using a standard telephone connection and a fax machine. A distinguishing feature of Internet fax, compared to other Intern ...
*
Modem
A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...
*
Pulse-code modulation
Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM Stream (comp ...
*
Telephony
Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is i ...
References
External links
* {{cite web , url=http://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/brent-townshend , title=Brent Townshend and 56K Bit/Sec Modem , website=Historical Inventors ~ Lemelson-MIT Program , publisher=
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
Modems
Fax