Despite the potential cost savings, however, experts say administrators might want to watch Internet-fax technology mature before they put it on the network. For starters, fax still reigns as a communications medium. According to Davidson, over 350 billion pages were sent via fax last year, a stunning average of 70 pages per person on the planet. The resulting telecommunications costs, then, are not surprising. But the verdict is still out on whether the Internet is the answer for every manager looking to keep costs in check.
Savings primarily seem to occur with heavy international dialing rather than domestic.
Vendors have taken different tacks in reducing fax costs. CyNet Inc. In this case, a conventional fax machine dials up the service bureau, and the fax is distributed by them through a proprietary network. The fax is sent over an Internet connection to the service and is then routed through the private network to the nearest local server, where that server makes a local call to the final destination. Yet another option is to network the fax machine itself with an intranet or the Inter net. This can be done using an attachment to existing fax machines, known as a call dialer, which routes faxes through the corporate WAN or a service provider.