Software

You need a modem connected to the phone line to send faxes directly from your computer.

The fax system uses Plain Old Telephone Service because it needs to dial and connect to the receiving fax device.

There are a variety of services that allow you to send and receive faxes over your high speed connection. Usually adding adds to your faxes or for a fee.

Chas

Firstly I would agree with Chas that you need a Dial Up Modem to use the Fax from within Windows XP to work correctly over an ADSL Internet connection as the ADSL connection while on a phone line isn't a phone connection.

This could be achieved in one of 2 ways the first would be to place a Dial up Modem onto the computer and use that or you could use a MFD Multi Function Device being a Printer/Scanner/Fax to achieve the same ends though with any Fax transmission the conventional upper speed is 28.8 KBS and generally 14.4 KBS.

This is now where things get tricky and I'm not sure if it's even possible with the current state of technology. Currently we are using Voice over IP for cheap telecommunications so maybe it would be possible to patch together something to allow the conventional VoIP software like Skype or Gismo to accept a Fax Transmission over an ADSL Modem.

The very first thing is that you Can Not use the Fax Wizard to achieve this as you do not have a Dial Up Modem connected and this Wizard will only work with a Dial up Modem. What you would need to do is install some VoIP software and set it up. Once that is working you could then set about configuring a Fax Printer to communicate for Fax Transmissions over the VoIP communication lines and you could receive any incoming Faxes through the same connection as you would have a specific VoIP address so it should be possible to point any incoming Fax Transmissions to that address.

The entire thing would need to be configured from within the VoIP Software and Not the XP Wizard to setup a Fax Connection as all you are doing is attempting to send a partial IP Address down the ADSL line in the form of a phone number so that's why things are not working for you presently.

However if you where to take the latest Skype or Gismo VoIP Package and install that you would then have a Communication ability available to you over the ADSL Connection and then maybe you could tag on a Fax Transmit Receive option as well without resorting to a Dial Up Modem of some description which will tie up the Voice Phone Line while it is being used.

If you don't want to go with an external Dial Up Modem that is what you are going to have to look at but I'm not quite sure that the technology is currently available yet.

Col

Thanks both Chaz and Col this saves me a lot of head scratching. I have Skype on my computer but I dont think I have the ability to work out how to set it to work with a fax from my Printer /Scanner. But thanks to both of you. If you discover a way to set up the Skype to handle this function I would be very gratefull of instruction.
Regards
Aidan

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