Patent ID: 7480065

Claim:
A method for handling fax transmissions comprising: receiving a fax call via a public telephone network at a fax processing system, the fax call originally destined for a subscriber's phone number; determining that the subscriber is connected to a data communications network at a network address on the data communications network; transmitting a fax call notification to the subscriber's network address, wherein transmission of the fax call notification begins regardless of whether the fax has been completely received; transmitting a fax call notification to the subscriber's network address, wherein transmission of the fax call notification begins regardless of whether the fax has been completely received; receiving an instruction from the subscriber for handling the fax, wherein a display of the fax call notification includes options for fax handling instructions, and the received instruction is selected from the options in the display; in response to the received instruction, transmitting the fax to the subscriber's network address, wherein the fax is streamed to the subscriber's network address; halting streaming of the fax upon interruption of the subscriber's connection; and then automatically resuming transmission of the fax upon reconnection by the subscriber.