Nearly every business has fax capabilities, and fax may be the only means of delivering documents electronically to many business partners. Fax offers immediate electronic document delivery of critical business documents with confirmation that the document has been received. Faxes enjoy a legal status that other electronic documents do not. The content cannot be altered easily. Fax is preferable over e-mail when signatures are required.
Fax is particularly important for global communications.
Time zone differences make real-time communications more difficult, and language barriers make written communication essential for conducting business effectively. Fax offers several advantages over e-mail. First, people tend to give faxes priority handling. Second, fax always maintains the desired format, whereas some e-mail systems throw tabular material out of alignment. Third, users don't experience file format problems that prevent the recipient of an e-mail message from opening an attached file.