Adapting a Fax system 2 Network

[sandman38]

Hello
Thanks for your all’s help on this one and if this one was a really dumb question I’m so sorry!

Here we go…
At work we only have one Analog Fax machine setup but we would like to add two more. All of the rest of the phone system is digital. Is there a way to take the one existing line and send it through a Computer, Router or something and have it handle all three fax machines?

Thank you!

Sincerely

Sandman38

 

[fredweston]

There are a couple things you could do, but we need more info first. If you only have one analog phone line, then only one device can be sending or receiving at any time, so there's no real advantage to adding machines. The only advantage would be if you had a big office, you could spread the fax machines out to put them in more convenient locations. However, you still have the problem of all the machines sharing one line.

Tell us a bit about your phone ssytem. Does the existing analog fax line branch off from it, or does it come in as a regular POTS line from the phone company? If it branches off from the phone system, you can probably add more analog extensions to it and use them for the additional machines. If it's a regular line from the phone company, then you're probably just going to have to suck it up and order two more lines.

Not that this will really solve your problem, but if you have a Windows 2003 server somewhere on your network, you could enable network faxing to allow people to fax from their desks. You'd have to add a faxmodem to the server, and that would also need a phone line.