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Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

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Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#71

Post by GlennS »

talles wrote: post #19

Genuine question: why there are folks still using fax?

I think this may be something that varies to region.

I lived in the UK for 32 years and never sent a fax or even saw a fax machine outside of a museum.

Couple of years ago I moved to Australia. Got a credit card for travel with Bankwest. In order to set up a direct debit to pay it off I had to fax them.

In the end I got them to fax themselves my details.

I'm not sure whether Bankwest is just incompetent, or if they deliberately make this difficult so that more people will miss their payments.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#72

Post by hombre_fatal »

uranium wrote: post #64
colejohnson66 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it secure though? It’s unencrypted!

It's point-to-point. Unless someone is tapping your phone line, or you dial the wrong number, where's the insecurity? Contrast that with email, which goes through any number of emails, sits in queues, gets backed up, etc. Of course some of the time you're actually faxing a fax-to-email gateway, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

> where's the insecurity?

All of the other security issues aside, how about simply walking over to the unprotected fax machine and leaving with a stack of "private" records?

Not sure you want to die on the hill of defending fax security.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#73

Post by scop »

colinbartlett wrote: post #62
ceejayoz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used your service a few times when buying a house. One cURL call and it was done. Super easy and much appreciated.

I am amused and impressed that you chose an API and cURL to send a fax than any of the many apps and services built on top of that API.

I am likewise amused and completely agree with the idea. Every fax app I have used is either clunky, overpriced, or both. I hadn’t heard of Phaxio until now and am look forward to cURLing my next fax. However, there is some dark part of me that wants to make a clunky bash script for it nonetheless in order to keep me from enjoying sending a fax.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#74

Post by closeparen »

tjohns wrote: post #46
throwlaplace wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fax requires a 56KHz channel hmm so you're basically saying that fax machines only listen to data coming across on a 56KHz carrier wave? i guess that makes sense since the same device (a fax machine) can function both as a telephone and fax (and you'd need to distinguish in hardware which mode you were operating in upon "picking up the phone"). but what i don't understand is the telephony (i'm not a network engi…

Yes, once your call gets to the central office it's moved onto a digital connection -- essentially an ISDN line. Notably, the entire telephone network is standardized on G.711 as a codec, which is raw PCM audio at 64 kbps, from 300–3400 Hz sampled at 8,000 samples/sec. (There's some regional differences that determine whether the network uses G.711u or G.711a, but that's not really important here.) Also relevant: The…

>The digital telephone network is exclusively a switched (not packet-based) network, so you're guaranteed near-zero latency.

Seems like this fact could be exploited more often in internet applications. High bandwidth channel for static assets, low latency channel for e.g. player movement data?

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#76

Post by closeparen »

rsynnott wrote: post #69
ken wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HQ audio quality (over 4G) is markedly better than land lines This is one of those facts that, no matter how many times I hear it or what proof is offered, I find it impossible to believe.

... Wait, why? Standard landlines are 300hz to 3.4khz; pretty low-fi. They should not be particularly hard to beat. VoLTE certainly sounds better than them. Your network or device may still be using the 90s cellular voice standard, tho.

What's the latency story for VoLTE? Hard to beat analog circuit switching.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#77

Post by dubcanada »

autonoshitbox wrote: post #55
indymike wrote: post #12

Faxburner is free.

And of course this comment has no replies and is 1500 pixels below the dozens of others marketing their paid service.

Have you used faxburner? Most of the comments above are people talking about other services they have founded or used.

Also I personally would prefer a paid service, faces typically are secure private documents I would want some level of guaranteed and privacy.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#78

Post by na85 »

amelius wrote: post #35
gumby wrote: post #13

The fax requires a 56KHz channel which has not been used for mobile telephony since the 1980s (when AMPS and GSM were developed. Before then it was just a radio link through an operator). That’s why you can’t use a high speed modem either. Some gsm phones had the ability to transmit a fax but they actually used a different protocol to talk to a fax gateway. I never saw one of these in the wild. I haven’t been in that…

Perhaps someone could start a relay service.

These exist! They're not cheap and probably ripe for disruption.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#80

Post by iandanforth »

amelius wrote: post #35
gumby wrote: post #13

The fax requires a 56KHz channel which has not been used for mobile telephony since the 1980s (when AMPS and GSM were developed. Before then it was just a radio link through an operator). That’s why you can’t use a high speed modem either. Some gsm phones had the ability to transmit a fax but they actually used a different protocol to talk to a fax gateway. I never saw one of these in the wild. I haven’t been in that…

Perhaps someone could start a relay service.

Like https://www.hellofax.com/ ?
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