hellofax.com works for this. I just used it a couple weeks ago took a minute to send a fax live to the receptionist.
Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?
101–110 of 168 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?
#102The 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.
We made http://mailprincess.com/ a while ago which is $1 per fax
Also made http://maleprincess.com/ for fun
Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering a fax is a print, I'm not sure what the printout comment is regarding. The presence and non-exclusion of email/IP gateways show how backwards the law surrounding this is.
The law is not based on reality. If I sent you a fax, and your fax machine (of whatever type) printed it out, that copy is legally as good as the original. If I scan, then email, and you print it out, it is not legally as good as the original. It doesn't matter if it makes sense, it is what it is.
Legally admissible digital signatures do exist, and you can infinitely photocopy a digitally signed document, though. Not so with fax, where a photocopy would count as a different document.
Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?
#104Genuine question: why there are folks still using fax?
Up until very recently my grandpa would use fax to send complaints to just about anything. It was about as stereotypical grumpy old man as you can imagine. He's a good person, just old-school formal when he writes. Comes of as a bit ... harsh. I thought it was going to end when they dismantled the analog network, and his fax machine with it, but somehow it just got worse. You see, on fax machines you rarely got spam,…
>You see, on fax machines you rarely got spam
When I entered the workforce I was surprised to see how much fax spam there was, usually a sheet or two every week. It's tapered off to ~ a couple of sheets per fortnight in recent times though. It is kind of amusing to see fax phishing with personalised cover notes attached to some spam about light furnishings etc.
I wish I could do the old "faxing sheets of black paper taped into a loop" trick but I'm sure the scammers are using e-fax now.
Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Faxburner has a premium account service.
Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?
#106Genuine question: why there are folks still using fax?
I'm waiting for faxing to come back like cassettes: Artists draw pictures and robodial a secret fan list (through a POTS modem and some 90s software) of fax machines where insiders can get exclusive limited physical copies of the art and the copies with the earliest timestamps become the most valued. People will just be sitting around their house and they hear the fax machine starting to unexpectedly print something…
You do it and I'll be the first subscriber, as long as i can afford it :)
Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
It is already used with QoS [1]
Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?
#108Faxzero is a great mostly free solution.
Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?
#109When I first applied for the Apple Developer Program from the Netherlands in the early days of the iPhone when they first published the SDK, Apple insisted that I fax my registration in to them in the UK, so I had to print it out, and take it by a shop that had a fax machine, and pay several euros to send an international fax to Apple.
More than 10 years later, there's still not an app for that.
Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?
#110When I first applied for the Apple Developer Program from the Netherlands in the early days of the iPhone when they first published the SDK, Apple insisted that I fax my registration in to them in the UK, so I had to print it out, and take it by a shop that had a fax machine, and pay several euros to send an international fax to Apple. More than 10 years later, there's still not an app for that.
There are several apps on the App Store that allow you to do just that?