Patent ID: 8400664

Claim:
A fax processing system, comprising: a fax management subsystem coupled to a public telephone network to receive a fax call for receiving a fax message at a subscriber's phone number; a database subsystem to store subscriber records for determining whether a called number associated with the fax call is registered to a subscriber; and an online detection subsystem coupled to the Internet to determine availability of a subscriber data device for fax notification service at a network address, wherein the fax management subsystem is to transmit a fax call notification that is separate from the fax message to the network address in response to a determination that the subscriber data device is available, and wherein transmission of the notification begins without waiting to receive an entirety of the fax message at the fax manauement subsystem and wherein the notification is to give an indication to the subscriber that the fax call is in process at the fax management subsystem.