A fax server is a physical or virtual server that’s used to manage the sending, receiving, and storage of faxes over a digital or analog network. Fax servers were once considered standard equipment in most business offices, but they are all but obsolete these days.
Instead, there are now many better solutions on the market, so there’s no need to deal with fax servers and the headaches they bring in the first place.
Four reasons not to use a fax server
1. Fax infrastructure is painful to scale
One of the hardest things about making changes to your office communications setup is doing so at scale. This can be a real nuisance with fax servers, as it takes careful planning so that you don’t end up with some seriously snarled communications.
Additionally, scaling a fax server often requires a hefty investment in new technology, including additional fax boards, modems, and servers to deal with the increased fax volume moving through your office.
Online fax services let you avoid this issue entirely, offering far smoother scalability without the need for additional hardware investments. This makes cloud-based services far more equipped to accommodate a business’s growing communication needs.
2. Limited flexibility
Simply put, fax servers are only great at sending and receiving faxes. This means that they’re not very useful in modern office communications where people need to send and receive messages across a variety of platforms and devices.
Since fax servers aren’t designed to interact with the various types of devices we use today, they can run into significant hurdles when it comes to office communications.
Trying to shoehorn a fax server into your business operations can throw off your workflows or require you to come up with workarounds to accommodate the antiquated technology. At the same time, it also requires you to run the risk of losing track of any document that isn’t part of your otherwise cloud-based system.
Long story short, maintaining compatibility with evolving technology standards and protocols can be a challenge for tax servers that’s just not worth taking on.
In contrast, many online solutions come with a far greater deal of flexibility, allowing users to send and receive faxes via email, online platforms, and even apps. Employees can send a fax from an iPhone, for example, no matter where they are.
Online faxes are also stored centrally and can be accessed by your team. This makes it much easier to organize and access files. Remote workers can retrieve whatever they need without having to come into the office.
3. Fax server maintenance costs
Since fax servers are hardware-dependent, they require ongoing maintenance, which can eat up budget. And, because this equipment is aging out of relevance, it’s not always possible for any old technician to service it — so you probably need to find a specialist.
It might be tempting to skirt this particular downside by simply not maintaining your fax servers as much, but this can be a costly mistake. Downtime and system failures can easily disrupt business operations and incur additional costs for troubleshooting and repairs.
After all, fax doesn’t require a ton of bandwidth, but the connection has to be stable. Slight delays or problems result in faxes not being sent or received.
Online fax solutions sidestep this entirely, as they don’t require any dedicated hardware, and they offer predictable subscription-based pricing models with minimal upfront investment.
4. Security risks
The older a technology is, the more likely it’s been broken into or hacked along the way — and if not, it may still include vulnerabilities that make it more likely to be compromised in the first place. Fax servers are no exception to this rule, and people have had a long time to figure out how to hack them and exploit their vulnerabilities.
The unfortunate truth is that transmitting sensitive information over traditional phone lines and unsecured networks increases the risk of your data being intercepted and used by hackers and scammers — and there’s not a whole lot you can do to mitigate that risk with traditional fax servers.
Of course, cloud-based and online fax solutions have their security vulnerabilities too, but they also have advanced security protocols and use modern encryption methods to safeguard information.
Furthermore, depending on the service, many online fax solutions comply with industry security regulations, and these solutions are also updated regularly in response to emerging threats.
Three better alternatives than an in-house fax server
1. Online fax solutions
Online fax solutions are the current gold standard replacement for fax servers. They allow businesses to do all the same things they could do with a traditional fax setup, only with much greater degrees of security and convenience.
Sometimes called internet faxing or virtual faxing, online faxing works much like sending an email. You simply open up the software or platform, select the document you want to send, and then click a button to send it to another person’s fax machine or online fax service.
The main benefits of online fax solutions include:
- Cost-effectiveness: Online fax services usually offer subscription or pay-as-you-go pricing, and it’s much cheaper than having to buy, maintain, and update all that hardware and software.
- Scalability: If you need to add another line to your online fax service, all you have to do is let your provider know. There’s no need to install additional hardware or buy new software.
- Flexibility: The keyword in online fax services is “online.” Since everything happens over a network, you and your team can access faxes anywhere you have an internet connection.
- Security: Online fax services are generally very secure, with encryption protocols and data privacy measures. Depending on which service you go with, you can even find options that comply with industry-specific security regulations, like HIPAA.
2. VoIP services
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services let you make and receive calls over the internet instead of over traditional phone lines, and they can also be used to send faxes. The way it works is by sending digital data to another person’s fax machine where it may be converted or translated back into analog signals via their VoIP service or an analog telephone adapter (ATA) that helps a fax machine read it.
Unlike a traditional fax machine, a VoIP fax service won’t automatically print out whatever it receives, but it will hold it as a file in a cloud-based system, which means you can access it anywhere and then print it whenever you want.
The main benefits of VoIP phone services include:
- Cost-effectiveness: Much like online fax services, VoIP phone services generally run cheap, and most work on a subscription model that you can easily increase or decrease as needed.
- Seamless integration: Since VoIP phone services do so many other things than faxing, they make a great option for businesses that want to keep their operations as integrated as possible. With VoIP phone services, your team can access their phone service, faxes, document management, and more all in one place.
- Advanced features: VoIP phone services come with a wide range of advanced features that make faxing more effective, with fax-to-email conversion being one of the most useful. This makes it so your faxes are sent to your email, where you can even reply to them. Many VoIP phone services also offer online document signing, which can be very convenient if you’re faxing things like contracts.
It’s important to note that many VoIP phone services also provide fax services — but not all of them do. Do your research to make sure whatever service you consider has all the functionality you need.
3. Document management systems
Document management systems (DMS) aren’t specifically designed for faxing, but they can often be used for it anyway, making them a good alternative to a fax server.
They work very similarly to online fax services in that you can upload a document to the DMS and then send it out as a virtual fax. Faxes you receive can also be sent directly into your DMS where it can be categorized along with the rest of your files.
The main benefits of DMS include:
- Convenience: If you’re already using a DMS to manage your documents and you need to send faxes, it just makes sense to use the same platform to do both functions.
- Built-in integration: Faxes are sent and received directly from the DMS, which means that you don’t have to worry about copying files over from a fax service or pulling files from your DMS to send via your fax service.
- Easy organization: If you’ve already got a good hierarchy in your DMS, faxes will fit right in, with no need to create another process.
I have nothing against fax servers personally, I just don’t think it is the best way for most offices to handle fax. There are too many better options out there.