Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 20:22:13 -0800 To: fax-faq-readers@sequoia.northcoast.com From: savetz@northcoast.com (Kevin Savetz) Subject: FAQ: How can I send a fax from the Internet? Archive-name: internet-services/fax-faq Last-Modified: 1994/11/20 Version: 0.7 FAQ: How can I send a fax from the Internet? Version 0.7 - November 20 1994 Send comments & updates to Kevin Savetz . This document is copyright 1994 by Kevin M. Savetz. All rights reserved. More legal stuff is near the end of this file. If you notice that an Internet fax service is missing from this list, or information herein needs updating, please send e-mail to savetz@northcoast.com. Interested in sponsoring this FAQ? Announce your business to thousands of interested readers _and_ support this overworked FAQ publisher. E-mail to savetz@northcoast.com for details. To learn about my new book, YOUR INTERNET CONSULTANT - THE FAQS OF LIFE ONLINE, send e-mail to savetz@rahul.net with a SUBJECT LINE of "YIC". *** Table of Contents Can I send a fax from the Internet? Free services TPC.INT Remote Printing Rabbit.rgm Sacramento Fax Service University of Minnesota Fax Service Swedish University Network Commercial Services InterFax FAXiNET Unigate FaxLinq Fax Services that are no more Legal Stuff Where to Find this Document *** Can I send a fax from the Internet? Indeed. There are several services for sending a fax via Internet mail - some are free while others are pay services. At least one service even lets you receive a fax via Internet mail. The e-mail-to-fax services that I know about are discussed below. All the services require that you can send and receive electronic mail to the Internet. FREE SERVICES *** TPC.INT Remote Printing One fax-from-the-Internet service is the brainchild of Carl Malamud (the creator of Internet Talk Radio) and Marshall Rose. They're doing research on how to integrate special-purpose devices, like facsimile printers, into the fabric of the Internet. It works simply enough - send electronic mail to a special address, and soon after (if your recipient's fax machine is in a covered area), out comes a freshly-minted fax. You can send a fax to multiple fax machines, or even a combination of faxes and traditional e-mail recipients. After the deed is done, you will receive electronic mail telling you if your fax was successfully sent or not. The service is free. You can't send a fax just anywhere with this service. A variety of companies, institutions and citizens linked to the Internet have joined the experiment by linking a computer and fax modem to the 'net. When an organization joins as a remote-fax server, it specifies what areas to which they are willing to send faxes. When you send an e-mail fax message, you (naturally) must include the phone number of the recipient's fax machine. A computer looks at the phone number and decides if any participating fax machines cover the area to which you want to send a fax. If so, your message is routed to the appropriate machine for faxation. Otherwise, you will receive electronic mail informing you the fax couldn't be delivered. To send a fax by e-mail, send a message To: remote-printer.@phonenumber.iddd.tpc.int Where contains information for the cover page. In , "/" is turned into a line break and "_" is turned into a space. For example, the address: To: remote-printer.Arlo_Cats/Room_123@12025551212.iddd.tpc.int Would send a fax to +1-202-555-1212 with the cover page: Please deliver this facsimile to: Arlo Cats Room 123 Note: There's another way to address faxes which seems to work more reliable sometimes. Note that the phone number is backwards and the numbers are separated by periods. To: remote-printer.Arlo_Cats/Room_123@2.1.2.1.5.5.5.2.0.2.1.tpc.int The following addresses can be used to obtain more information: tpc-coverage@town.hall.org - Current fax coverage (automated reply) tpc-faq@town.hall.org - Frequently Asked Questions (automated reply) tpc-admin@town.hall.org - Administrative questions (human) tpc-rp-request@aarnet.edu.au - Majordomo mailing list agent tpc-rp@aarnet.edu.au - Mailing list contributions (mailing list) There's a WorldWideWeb page which provides information about the TPC.INT fax service. If your Web browser can display forms, you can even fill out a form and send a fax interactively. Use your favorite Web browser to connect to: http://linux1.balliol.ox.ac.uk/fax/faxsend.html *** Rabbit.rgm Sacramento Fax Service This service is a feature of a Sacramento, California-based bulletin board system. You can use it to send faxes to areas that are a local call from Sacramento, including the California State Legislature. This service is run as a hobby and is connected to the Internet by UUCP, so it can take from 12 to 24 hours for your fax to be delivered or for the help files to reach you. It does not support multiple addressing: only one fax number per message. It also does not send a cover page, so be sure to start your message with a note directing it to someone's attention. It will truncate faxes longer than two pages (that's 132 lines). To use this fax service, send e-mail To: faxline@rabbit.rgm.com Subject: local (7 digit) phone number, without area code Body: For complete usage information, send e-mail To: request@rabbit.rgm.com Subject: 052 For a list of some legislators' fax numbers in the Sacramento area, send e-mail: To: request@rabbit.rgm.com Subject: 050 *** The University of Minnesota Fax Service The University of Minnesota operates a fax gateway which allows students and staff to send faxes anywhere. Even if you don't go to UMinn, you may use the service to send faxes to folks at the University and exchanges local to the campus. The structure for e-mailing a fax is: To: /pn=John.Doe/dd.fax=234-5678/@fax.tc.umn.edu Put your recipient's name, with a period between the first and last names, after pn= and put the seven digit fax number after the characters dd.fax=. This name will be printed in the "To:" field on the fax cover page. The area code for the University of Minnesota is 612, so you don't need to supply an area code. For more information, send e-mail to ccs@maroon.tc.umn.edu. *** Swedish University Network {Thanks to Fredrik Ekman for the info!} The Swedish University Computer Network (sunet) has a national fax service that can be used by anyone at no cost. Users in Sweden can use it to send faxes all over the world but users outside Sweden can only use it for telephone numbers within Sweden. To send a fax to Arlo Cats at +46-87654321 (that's international notation for Sweden, phone number 08/765 43 21) send e-mail to: Arlo_Cats@F087654321.fax.sunet.se Note that you will always have to preface the phone number with the letter "F" for "fax". Special characters in the body of your message are converted to Swedish characters: ASCII Becomes } a with circle accent { a with diereses (two dots) | o with diereses ] A with circle accent [ A with diereses \ O with diereses ` e with right accent For more information, e-mail "faxmaster@fax.sunet.se". COMMERCIAL (PAY-FOR-USE) SERVICES *** InterFax InterFax allows you to send faxes via e-mail within the US or internationally. InterFax is a fee-based service (billed to your credit card) but, unlike the services listed above, InterFax lets you send faxes anywhere, not just select locations. As of this writing, InterFax costs $5 per month, which includes the first five fax pages. Additional pages cost 50 cents each. There is a one-time sign-up charge of $25. For further information, send e-mail to faxmaster@pan.com, or contact InterFax at PO Box 162, Skippack, PA 19474 USA. (215) 584-0300. Fax: (215)584-1038. *** FAXiNET Another fax-by-mail service is FAXiNET, which lets you send any text (ASCII) or PostScript documents to virtually every destination that can be direct dialed from the United States. For an extra fee, the company can also receive faxes for you, which will be delivered to you via electronic mail. FAXiNET offers two rate plans. Plan 1 has a one-time activation fee of $35.00, a monthly maintenance fee of $9.95 and a per-page transmission cost (to US destinations) of 39 cents. Plan two, for lower-volume users, has a one-time activation fee of $20 and no monthly maintenance fee; however faxes cost 65 cents per page. International rates depend on the destination country: from Albania ($2.25/page) to Zimbabwe ($2.52/page). Faxes to the United Kingdom are 56 cents/page; Mexico is $1.52/page. Additional services, including adding your custom logo and signature to your faxes, are available at extra cost. Corporate accounts are also available. More information is available from AnyWare Associates, FAXiNET, 32 Woodland Road, Boston, MA 02130. (617) 522-8102. E-mail: info@awa.com (for automated responce) or sales@awa.com (for a human.) Information is also maintained on FAXiNETs web server: http://www.awa.com/faxinet/ *** Unigate Unigate is another pay-for-use service that allows you to send faxes to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. It also allows you to receive faxes as electronic mail. Unigate also handles e-mail-to-postal mail conversion. Here's their price structure: For fax service USA to Russia: $1.59 / page fax service from Russia to Canada: 1.79 / page fax service from Russia to Europe: 2.59 / page For postal-mail service USA-Russia: $1.00 / page snail-mail service from Russia to Canada: 1.50 / page snail-mail service from Russia to Europe: 1.79 / page For more information, e-mail "yuri@atmos.washington.edu". *** FaxLinq This service doesn't quite fit into the e-mail-to-fax arena, but it's close enough to mention here. With FaxLinq, you may receive facsimile messages as e-mail. Your correspondents send a fax to the service's machine, which is converted to a TIFF file and sent to you in a MIME-compliant e-mail message. (Your must be able to handle MIME e-mail and view TIFF files - you can't receive faxes as ASCII text.) FaxLinq is a one-way ticket: it doesn't handle e-mail-to-fax transmissions. There is an annual subscription fee of $39, which includes 10 pages of facsimile transmission. Additional pages received cost $1 per page. FaxLinq uses "deposit" accounts: you must pay in advance for any faxes you expect to receive. Should a fax be received for you when your account balance is not sufficient to cover the number of pages received, you will be notified by e-mail. For more information, e-mail info@antigone.com or write: Antigone Press, 1310 Clayton Street, Suite 15, San Francisco CA 94114. *** Fax Services That Are No More Don't tell me about these. They have ceased to be. - Digital Chicken was a service that let users send faxes to Canadian government and citizens. Use TPC.INT instead. - fax@cssnet.sanford.nc.us - no longer available due to hard drive crash. - Soviet FaxGate and PaperGate (gatemaster@elvis.sovusa.com...host unknown) ***Legal Stuff This document is copyright 1994 by Kevin M. Savetz. All rights reserved. Permission for the following types of distribution is hereby granted, provided that this file is distributed intact, including the above copyright notice: - non-commercial distribution - posting to Internet archives, BBSs and online services - distribution by teachers, librarians and Internet trainers - inclusion on software/FAQ/Internet-oriented CD-ROMs Permission for commercial distribution may be obtained from the editor. SHARE THIS INFORMATION FREELY AND IN GOOD FAITH. DO NOT DISTRIBUTE MODIFIED VERSIONS OF THIS DOCUMENT. This document is new and in transition. If you notice that something important is missing, or information herein needs updating, please contact the editor. The editor and contributors have developed this FAQ as a service to the Internet community. We hope you find it useful. This FAQ is purely a volunteer effort. Although every effort has been made to insure that answers are as accurate as possible, no guarantee is implied or intended. While the editor tries to keep this document current, remember that the Internet and its services are constantly changing, so don't be surprised if you happen across statements which are obsolete. If you do, please send corrections to the editor. Corrections, questions, and comments should be sent to Kevin Savetz at "savetz@northcoast.com" (Internet) or "savetz" (America Online/eWorld.) Please indicate what version of this document to which you are referring. *** Where to Find this Document This file is posted twice monthly (on the 5th and 19th of each month) to the Usenet newsgroups alt.internet.services, alt.online-service, alt.bbs.internet, alt.answers and news.answers. You can receive each new edition of this document automatically via electronic mail, if you are so inclined. This is a low-volume list, with updates every few weeks. Note that the following address is my personal e-mail box, filtered by a very simple mail filter. Your request must go in the SUBJECT line EXACTLY as shown below. Anything else will find its way into my e-mail box rather than to the subscription program. To subscribe, send e-mail: To: savetz@rahul.net Subject: subscribe fax-faq Body: You can also receive it once via electronic mail (without subscribing to automatic updates). Again, the request must be entered in the SUBJECT line EXACTLY as shown below: To: savetz@rahul.net Subject: send fax-faq Body: You can receive it via anonymous FTP: rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/internet-services/fax-faq ftp.eff.org:/pub/Net_info/Technical/net-fax.faq You can get it using Gopher: gopher://gopher.eff.org/11/Net_info/Technical, net-fax.faq ###end of document### -- [ Kevin M. Savetz -- savetz@sequoia.northcoast.com ] [ Author, "Your Internet Consultant - the FAQs of Life Online" ] [ Sams Publishing, ISBN 0-672-30520-8 ] [ FAQs/articles/info: http://www.northcoast.com/savetz/savetz.html ]