Where does the word fax come from

Most people have lived their entire lives without knowing anything about the history of fax machines. These people don’t know that the first commercial fax machine was produced over 150 years ago, or that today’s fax machines rely on largely the same technology.

Today, I’m going to explain the history of fax machines and tell you why that history is nowhere close to being complete.

Bain Sends The World’s First Fax

The world’s first fax was sent by a man named Alexander Bain. Using rudimentary technology in an age before widespread electricity usage, Bain was nonetheless able to send an image over telephone wire.

Bain did this in a creative way: he synchronized the movement of two pendulums through a clock. This synchronization helped to accurately scan an image line by line.

After being scanned, that image was transferred onto a cylinder. The cylinder was then able to reproduce that image using the synchronization of the pendulum.

By today’s standards, Bain’s first faxes were of very poor quality and resolution. Back in 1846, however, they amazed the technological community.

By the end of 1843, Bain had filed a fax machine patent for: “Improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces, and in electric printing, and signal telegraphs.”

The word ‘fax’, never came up in the patent. The patent author chose instead to use the word “electric printing.” However, during this time period, reproductions sent via various “faxing” technologies were called “facsimiles”, which is where the word “fax” comes from.

Bakewell Produces The World’s First Fax Machine

Bain’s device was technically a fax machine. However, if you looked at the machine today, you would never guess it was a fax machine.

First Popular Fax Machine

Sorry, Frederick Bakewell. As hard as you tried, your fax machine would never catch on. Later in the century, however, Bakewell’s early fax machine provided a foundation for Giovanni Caselli. Caselli was an Italian physicist who is credited with creating the world’s first commercial faxing operation.

Caselli’s fax machine – called the Pantelegraph – did something that no other fax machine had done to date: it became popular.

Why on earth was it called the Pantelegraph, you might ask? It’s made up of two words: “pantograph”, which was a machine used to copy drawings and words, and “telegraph”, which were wires capable of transmitting data over long distances. The Pantelegraph used both of these devices to provide early fax machine services to businesses and individuals in Europe.

The secret behind the success of the Pantelegraph was its use of two regulating clocks. There was one regulating clock on the sending machine and another on the receiving machine. This synchronicity allowed the Pantelegraph to transmit data anywhere a telegraph wire could be laid.

Pantelegraph systems were established between major cities in Europe. The first system was built between Paris and Lyon, France, in 1865. Two years later, the system was extended to Marseille.

Ten years after that, the communications world experienced another groundbreaking moment: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. The widespread installation of telephone wires would change the fax machine industry forever.

Turn of The Century Improvements To Fax Technology

The turn of the century was an exciting time to be on the planet. Electricity, cars, and flight were quickly entering the public mind.

At the same time, fax machine technology continued to expand. Inspired by Caselli’s success, inventors tried to tweak and tune the Pantelegraph to meet the needs of businesses and individuals around the world.

Here are a few of the notable fax machine inventors from the turn of the century:

Shelford Bidwell: Bidwell made a major breakthrough in fax machine technology. Instead of sending data down telegraph wires, Bidwell created a fax machine powered by selenium cells and then connected the device to a telephone wire. In 1881, his work was published in Nature, where it was called “Tele-Photography.”

Edouard Belin: Swiss inventor Edouard Belin created something called the Belinographe. The Belinographe sent images over both telephone and telegraph wires. Its major innovation was in the way it scanned images for transmission. Just like today’s fax machines, the Belinographe scanned the image and recorded the intensity of light point-by-point. Since information could travel via both telephone and telegraph networks, the Belinographe was able to reach distant geographic locations in short periods of time.

Elisha Gray: Elisha Gray created the teleautograph. As you may have guessed from the name, the teleautograph was a revolutionary device for autographs and signatures. Instead of having to mail important documents back and forth, businessmen and politicians were able to send verified signatures via teleautograph. This made the world a significantly smaller place for banking, big business, politics, and other industries. Amazingly, the original company behind the teleautograph, Teleautograph Corporation, survived until 1999 when it was bought out by Xerox. Of course, the teleautograph did more than just transmit signatures. Anyone could sit down at one machine, scribble a signature or image onto a piece of paper, and have that image appear in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, or other cities across America.

Richard H. Ranger: The other names in this section made great technological strides forward for the industry. However, it was Richard H. Ranger who truly introduced the fax machine to the public. Ranger was an American electrical engineer most famous for transmitting the first photograph across the ocean using radio technology. His transmission device was called the wireless photoradiogram. His work was similar to the work of Arthur Korn, who had previously transmitted an image of the Pope from Italy to Maine.

Rudolf Hell and The Hellschreiber

The Hellschreiber sounds like a deadly weapon a Bond villain would use. It’s not. Instead, Hellschreiber simply means “light pen” in German and was an early forerunner to today’s fax machines.

The Hellschreiber was invented by Rudolf Hell in the 1920s and 1930s. Obviously, the 1920s and 1930s were a unique period in German history, and Adolf Hitler’s regime would end up using the Hellschreiber to communicate with troops during World War II. It played a role in the infamous Enigma encryption system, for example, and helped spread Nazi propaganda across Europe.

After the war, the Hellschreiber was used for much more innocent purposes. It was popular with press release and newswire agencies, for example. It remained in use until the 1980s by radio operators and various media agencies.

The Hellschreiber’s major innovation was describing pages of text using a series of pixels. A 7×7 grid would represent one letter of the alphabet, and an electronic reader would translate all of the letters on a page of text into binary data that could be passed down phone lines.

Radio Fax

Radiofax was the first major invention which saw the word “facsimile” shortened to “fax”. Radiofax was created in the 1950s and relied on the image transmission technology created by Richard Ranger and Arthur Korn.

Radiofax machines are still in popular use today. They’re used to broadcast weather information and maritime charts around the world. When the technology was first invented in the 1950s, it used landlines to spread weather charts across the United States. As the technology expanded internationally, it relied on HF radio.

Today, Radiofax can be known by two interchangeable names: HF Fax and Weatherfax. No matter what you call it, this technology made international shipping and maritime travel safer while also instantly sharing weather data around the world.

Color Fax

Herbert E. Ives was an American scientist who accomplished many great things in life – he performed an experiment which confirmed Einstein’s theory of special relativity’s time dilation, for example, and played a key role in the American optical field.

Faxing was just one of his many passions. In 1942, he transmitted the world’s first color fax. The technology would eventually play a key role in early television broadcasts.

We can thank Ives for both the color fax and, indirectly, color television. He was a visionary in the world of communications.

Xerox Creates The World’s First Commercial Fax Machine

All of the inventors listed above paved the way for Xerox to make a lot of money in the faxing industry. The world’s most well-known faxing company created something called Long Distance Xerograph, or LDX, in 1964.

LDX was remarkably similar to today’s fax machines. In six minutes, LDX could transmit an average-sized document anywhere in the world via phone lines.

Industrialized nations like America, Japan, and Germany quickly adopted this technology. While the first LDX machines were incredibly large by today’s standards, Xerox continued to tweak the design until achieving the average-sized units we see today.

Worldwide Standards In Faxing Technology

Throughout history, the legal world has constantly played ‘catch up’ with the world of technology. This also took place in the faxing industry. It wasn’t until 1980 when something called the ITU G3 Facsimile Standard was created by a Japanese telecommunications giant.

Despite the boring-sounding name, the ITU G3 Facsimile Standard was actually a major breakthrough in the world of technology. Different regions in the world use different standards for many tech devices – some regions use CDMA or GSM for mobile devices, for example, while other regions use 110V electricity instead of 220V.

The fax industry, on the other hand, adopted a single worldwide standard. There was no reason why a fax machine produced in Japan would not be able to communicate with a fax machine produced in South Africa.

That standard encouraged new fax machine companies to enter the market and led to widespread adoption of fax machines across the world. In the 1980s, fax machines were absolutely vital to international and domestic businesses in every country on the planet.

Faxing Versus The Internet

In the 1980s, the internet was just a dim light on the horizon. It was growing more and more popular, but it still faced limited coverage and use. That’s why the fax machine remained the most popular communications tool for long distances.

As we all know, this disparity wouldn’t last long. As the internet became more popular, fax machine use declined. There were still plenty of good reasons to use a fax machine, but email became the best way to send a quick message from one end of the planet to another.

Foreseeing the rise of computers and the internet, Xerox began to include Ethernet on their fax machines in the 1980s, while computer manufacturers like GammaFax created dual-purpose fax machines and desktop computers.

The late 1990s and early 2000s were the end of faxing’s heyday. However, early faxing inventors have influenced our world in a considerable number of ways. They played a role in getting color television into every home, for example, and paved the way for multiple types of mass communications technology. From radio to television to electronic signature technology, we can thank the fax machine and its inventors for a lot of things we take for granted.

What Does The Future Hold For Fax Machines?

Some people say the future looks grim for fax machines. How can fax machines compete in a world with email and cloud storage?

Fax machines aren’t as popular as they used to be. However, that doesn’t mean they’re ready to disappear. Faxes continue to play a key role in the legal industry, where faxed signatures are often worth more than signatures that have been digitally transferred.

Fax

The
word «fax» comes from the word «facsimile». A fax
machine will send a duplicate of the message, document, design or
photo that is fed into it.

Faxing
is a means of telecommunication that has developed very quickly over
the past few years. There are various models of fax machines which
connect to a telephone socket and which work on a system similar to
the telephone system.

Charges
are measured in telephone units and therefore vary according to the
time of day and where the fax is being sent. The advantages of fax
include instant reception of documents and documentary evidence of
what has been transferred. A document can be relayed from one source
to hundreds of other receivers, for example, if the head office of a
chain store wants to circulate a memo or report to its branches.

2. Complete the dialogue

A: Where does the word «fax»
come from?

B:

A: What can a fax machine do?

B:

A: When did this means of
communication develop?

B:

A: How does it function?

B:

A: And how are charges
measured?

B:

A: What are the advantages of
fax?

B:
…..

3. Read and translate the text. Write out the unknown words The Telex

The
mobile telephone, fast train and air travel have cut the problem of
distance for today’s business executives. However, where the
addressee cannot be reached by telephone, the fax and the telex
messages may still prove valuable. Generally speaking, telex machines
are now used only where there is a need for a legal proof and when a
fax message is unacceptable.

The
telex is a machine like a typewriter, but with a dial on its casing.
A message can be sent by dialing the receiver’s number, by dialing
and using the keyboard for some countries, or by asking the operator
to connect you.

The
telex has all the advantages of sending a cable and in addition it
operates in the office and offers a direct line. It is available
twenty-four hours a day, and can send cables as well as telex
messages.

Operating
the telex: once the telex operator has dialed the code, an answerback
code will appear on the teleprinter indicating that the sender is
through. If the wrong code appears, the sender dials again. The
message is typed, as with a normal typewriter, and appears on the
receiver’s machine.

Corrections
are made by typing five X’s: WE ARE SEDXXXXXSENDING ORDER.

Each
telex message is finished with + sign, if the end is not clear; + +
sign is used after the last message; + ? sign at the end of a message
means either “reply, confirm” or “A further message will be
sent”.

Telexes
have their own language. Some words are left out altogether, e.g.
articles, prepositions, pronouns “I”, “you”, auxiliary verbs
“to be”, “to have”, “will”. Instead of “I’ll write
soon” it is written “WRITING SOON” or “LETTER FOLLOWS”;
instead of “Please will you write soon” –“PLEASE WRITE SOON”.

Telex
charges depend on the time it takes to send the message, so telex
operators have developed their own abbreviations:

ASAP, SOONEST – as soon as
possible

ATTN – attention

CFM – confirm, I confirm

EEE – error

ETA – estimate time of
arrival

EXT – extension

FIN — I have finished my
message now

FR – from

L/C – letter of credit

MGR – manager

MOM – waits, waiting

PLS, SVP – please

RAP – I shall call you back

RECALL – call me back

RODS – regards

THRU – through

THKS – thanks

TLX – telex

U – you

W – words

X – error

Figures
and symbols should be written in words, e.g.: FIFTY DOLLARS for
$50.00; AT for @; PER CENT for %.

The
word “telex” can be used as a noun, a verb and a participle,
e.g.: “Please telex as soon as possible” or “We received a
telexed reply”.

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Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device. The original document is scanned with a fax machine (or a telecopier), which processes the contents (text or images) as a single fixed graphic image, converting it into a bitmap, and then transmitting it through the telephone system in the form of audio-frequency tones. The receiving fax machine interprets the tones and reconstructs the image, printing a paper copy.^[1] Early systems used direct conversions of image darkness to audio tone in a continuous or analog manner. Since the 1980s, most machines transmit an audio-encoded digital representation of the page, using data compression to more quickly transmit areas that are all-white or all-black.

Fax machines were ubiquitous in offices in the 1980s and 1990s, but have gradually been rendered obsolete by Internet-based technologies such as email and the World Wide Web. They remain particularly popular in medical administration and law enforcement.^[2]

History[edit]

Wire transmission[edit]

Scottish inventor Alexander Bain worked on chemical-mechanical fax-type devices and in 1846 was able to reproduce graphic signs in laboratory experiments. He received British patent 9745 on May 27, 1843, for his «Electric Printing Telegraph».^[3][4][5] Frederick Bakewell made several improvements on Bain’s design and demonstrated a telefax machine.^[6][7][8] The Pantelegraph was invented by the Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli.^[9] He introduced the first commercial telefax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865, some 11 years before the invention of the telephone.^[10][11]

In 1880, English inventor Shelford Bidwell constructed the scanning phototelegraph that was the first telefax machine to scan any two-dimensional original, not requiring manual plotting or drawing.^[12] An account of Henry Sutton’s «telephane» was published in 1896. Around 1900, German physicist Arthur Korn invented the Bildtelegraph, widespread in continental Europe especially following a widely noticed transmission of a wanted-person photograph from Paris to London in 1908,^[13] used until the wider distribution of the radiofax.^[14][15][16] Its main competitors were the Bélinographe by Édouard Belin first, then since the 1930s the Hellschreiber, invented in 1929 by German inventor Rudolf Hell, a pioneer in mechanical image scanning and transmission.^{[citation needed]}

The 1888 invention of the telautograph by Elisha Gray marked a further development in fax technology, allowing users to send signatures over long distances, thus allowing the verification of identification or ownership over long distances.^[17][18][19]

On May 19, 1924, scientists of the AT&T Corporation «by a new process of transmitting pictures by electricity» sent 15 photographs by telephone from Cleveland to New York City, such photos being suitable for newspaper reproduction. Previously, photographs had been sent over the radio using this process.^[20]

The Western Union «Deskfax» fax machine, announced in 1948, was a compact machine that fit comfortably on a desktop, using special spark printer paper.^[21]

Wireless transmission[edit]

As a designer for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), in 1924, Richard H. Ranger invented the wireless photoradiogram, or transoceanic radio facsimile, the forerunner of today’s «fax» machines. A photograph of President Calvin Coolidge sent from New York to London on November 29, 1924, became the first photo picture reproduced by transoceanic radio facsimile. Commercial use of Ranger’s product began two years later. Also in 1924, Herbert E. Ives of AT&T transmitted and reconstructed the first color facsimile, a natural-color photograph of silent film star Rudolph Valentino in period costume, using red, green and blue color separations.^[22]

Beginning in the late 1930s, the Finch Facsimile system was used to transmit a «radio newspaper» to private homes via commercial AM radio stations and ordinary radio receivers equipped with Finch’s printer, which used thermal paper. Sensing a new and potentially golden opportunity, competitors soon entered the field, but the printer and special paper were expensive luxuries, AM radio transmission was very slow and vulnerable to static, and the newspaper was too small. After more than ten years of repeated attempts by Finch and others to establish such a service as a viable business, the public, apparently quite content with its cheaper and much more substantial home-delivered daily newspapers, and with conventional spoken radio bulletins to provide any «hot» news, still showed only a passing curiosity about the new medium.^[23]

By the late 1940s, radiofax receivers were sufficiently miniaturized to be fitted beneath the dashboard of Western Union’s «Telecar» telegram delivery vehicles.^[21]

In the 1960s, the United States Army transmitted the first photograph via satellite facsimile to Puerto Rico from the Deal Test Site using the Courier satellite.

Radio fax is still in limited use today for transmitting weather charts and information to ships at sea. The closely related technology of slow-scan television is still used by amateur radio operators.

Telephone transmission[edit]

In 1964, Xerox Corporation introduced (and patented) what many consider to be the first commercialized version of the modern fax machine, under the name (LDX) or Long Distance Xerography. This model was superseded two years later with a unit that would truly set the standard for fax machines for years to come. Up until this point facsimile machines were very expensive and hard to operate. In 1966, Xerox released the Magnafax Telecopiers, a smaller, 46 lb (21 kg) facsimile machine. This unit was far easier to operate and could be connected to any standard telephone line. This machine was capable of transmitting a letter-sized document in about six minutes. The first sub-minute, digital fax machine was developed by Dacom, which built on digital data compression technology originally developed at Lockheed for satellite communication.^[24][25]

By the late 1970s, many companies around the world (especially Japanese firms) had entered the fax market. Very shortly after this, a new wave of more compact, faster and efficient fax machines would hit the market. Xerox continued to refine the fax machine for years after their ground-breaking first machine. In later years it would be combined with copier equipment to create the hybrid machines we have today that copy, scan and fax. Some of the lesser known capabilities of the Xerox fax technologies included their Ethernet enabled Fax Services on their 8000 workstations in the early 1980s.

Prior to the introduction of the ubiquitous fax machine, one of the first being the Exxon Qwip^[26] in the mid-1970s, facsimile machines worked by optical scanning of a document or drawing spinning on a drum. The reflected light, varying in intensity according to the light and dark areas of the document, was focused on a photocell so that the current in a circuit varied with the amount of light. This current was used to control a tone generator (a modulator), the current determining the frequency of the tone produced. This audio tone was then transmitted using an acoustic coupler (a speaker, in this case) attached to the microphone of a common telephone handset. At the receiving end, a handset’s speaker was attached to an acoustic coupler (a microphone), and a demodulator converted the varying tone into a variable current that controlled the mechanical movement of a pen or pencil to reproduce the image on a blank sheet of paper on an identical drum rotating at the same rate.

Computer facsimile interface[edit]

In 1985, Hank Magnuski, founder of GammaLink, produced the first computer fax board, called GammaFax. Such boards could provide voice telephony via Analog Expansion Bus.^[27]

In the 21st century[edit]

Although businesses usually maintain some kind of fax capability, the technology has faced increasing competition from Internet-based alternatives. In some countries^[which?], because electronic signatures on contracts are not yet recognized by law, while faxed contracts with copies of signatures are, fax machines enjoy continuing support in business.^[29] In Japan, faxes are still used extensively as of September 2020 for cultural and graphemic reasons.^{[30][31][32][33]} They are available for sending to both domestic and international recipients from over 81% of all convenience stores nationwide. Convenience-store fax machines commonly print the slightly re-sized content of the sent fax in the electronic confirmation-slip, in A4 paper size.^[34][35][36] Use of fax machines for reporting cases during the COVID-19 pandemic has been criticised in Japan for introducing data errors and delays in reporting, slowing response efforts to contain the spread of infections and hindering the transition to remote work.^[37][38][39]

In many corporate environments, freestanding fax machines have been replaced by fax servers and other computerized systems capable of receiving and storing incoming faxes electronically, and then routing them to users on paper or via an email (which may be secured).^[40] Such systems have the advantage of reducing costs by eliminating unnecessary printouts and reducing the number of inbound analog phone lines needed by an office.

The once ubiquitous fax machine has also begun to disappear from the small office and home office environments.^{[citation needed]} Remotely hosted fax-server services are widely available from VoIP and e-mail providers allowing users to send and receive faxes using their existing e-mail accounts without the need for any hardware or dedicated fax lines. Personal computers have also long been able to handle incoming and outgoing faxes using analog modems or ISDN, eliminating the need for a stand-alone fax machine. These solutions are often ideally suited for users who only very occasionally need to use fax services. In July 2017 the United Kingdom’s National Health Service was said to be the world’s largest purchaser of fax machines because the digital revolution has largely bypassed it.^[41] In June 2018 the Labour Party said that the NHS had at least 11,620 fax machines in operation^[42] and in December the Department of Health and Social Care said that no more fax machines could be bought from 2019 and that the existing ones must be replaced by secure email by March 31, 2020.^[43]

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, generally viewed as digitally advanced in the NHS, was engaged in a process of removing its fax machines in early 2019. This involved quite a lot of e-fax solutions because of the need to communicate with pharmacies and nursing homes which may not have access to the NHS email system and may need something in their paper records.^[44]

In 2018 two-thirds of Canadian doctors reported that they primarily used fax machines to communicate with other doctors. Faxes are still seen as safer and more secure and electronic systems are often unable to communicate with each other.^[45]

Hospitals are the leading users for fax machines in the United States where almost all doctors prefer fax machines over emails, often due to concerns about accidentally violating HIPAA.^[46] However, fax machines are beginning to decline due to expansion of telehealth as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and virtual visits often replace the need for a patient to fax or mail information to a doctor, since the doctor would receive the information via a telehealth platform such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams.

Capabilities[edit]

There are several indicators of fax capabilities: group, class, data transmission rate, and conformance with ITU-T (formerly CCITT) recommendations. Since the 1968 Carterphone decision, most fax machines have been designed to connect to standard PSTN lines and telephone numbers.

Group[edit]

Analog[edit]

Group 1 and 2 faxes are sent in the same manner as a frame of analog television, with each scanned line transmitted as a continuous analog signal. Horizontal resolution depended upon the quality of the scanner, transmission line, and the printer. Analog fax machines are obsolete and no longer manufactured. ITU-T Recommendations T.2 and T.3 were withdrawn as obsolete in July 1996.

• Group 1 faxes conform to the ITU-T Recommendation T.2. Group 1 faxes take six minutes to transmit a single page, with a vertical resolution of 96 scan lines per inch. Group 1 fax machines are obsolete and no longer manufactured.
• Group 2 faxes conform to the ITU-T Recommendations T.3 and T.30. Group 2 faxes take three minutes to transmit a single page, with a vertical resolution of 96 scan lines per inch. Group 2 fax machines are almost obsolete, and are no longer manufactured. Group 2 fax machines can interoperate with Group 3 fax machines.

Digital[edit]

A major breakthrough in the development of the modern facsimile system was the result of digital technology, where the analog signal from scanners was digitized and then compressed, resulting in the ability to transmit high rates of data across standard phone lines. The first digital fax machine was the Dacom Rapidfax first sold in late 1960s, which incorporated digital data compression technology developed by Lockheed for transmission of images from satellites.^[24][25]

Group 3 and 4 faxes are digital formats and take advantage of digital compression methods to greatly reduce transmission times.

• Group 3 faxes conform to the ITU-T Recommendations T.30 and T.4. Group 3 faxes take between 6 and 15 seconds to transmit a single page (not including the initial time for the fax machines to handshake and synchronize). The horizontal and vertical resolutions are allowed by the T.4 standard to vary among a set of fixed resolutions:
  • Horizontal: 100 scan lines per inch
    • Vertical: 100 scan lines per inch («Basic»)
  • Horizontal: 200 or 204 scan lines per inch
    • Vertical: 100 or 98 scan lines per inch («Standard»)
    • Vertical: 200 or 196 scan lines per inch («Fine»)
    • Vertical: 400 or 391 (note not 392) scan lines per inch («Superfine»)
  • Horizontal: 300 scan lines per inch
    • Vertical: 300 scan lines per inch
  • Horizontal: 400 or 408 scan lines per inch
    • Vertical: 400 or 391 scan lines per inch («Ultrafine»)
• Group 4 faxes conform to the ITU-T Recommendations T.563, T.503, T.521, T.6, T.62, T.70, T.411 to T.417. They are designed to operate over 64 kbit/s digital ISDN circuits. The allowed resolutions, a superset of those in the T.4 recommendation, are specified in the T.6 recommendation.^[47]

Fax Over IP (FoIP) can transmit and receive pre-digitized documents at near-realtime^[vague] speeds using ITU-T recommendation T.38 to send digitised images over an IP network using JPEG compression. T.38 is designed to work with VoIP services and often supported by analog telephone adapters used by legacy fax machines that need to connect through a VoIP service. Scanned documents are limited to the amount of time the user takes to load the document in a scanner and for the device to process a digital file. The resolution can vary from as little as 150 DPI to 9600 DPI or more. This type of faxing is not related to the e-mail–to–fax service that still uses fax modems at least one way.

Class[edit]

Computer modems are often designated by a particular fax class, which indicates how much processing is offloaded from the computer’s CPU to the fax modem.

• Class 1 (also known as Class 1.0) fax devices do fax data transfer, while the T.4/T.6 data compression and T.30 session management are performed by software on a controlling computer. This is described in ITU-T recommendation T.31.^[48]
• What is commonly known as «Class 2» is an unofficial class of fax devices that perform T.30 session management themselves, but the T.4/T.6 data compression is performed by software on a controlling computer. Implementations of this «class» are based on draft versions of the standard that eventually significantly evolved to become Class 2.0.^[49] All implementations of «Class 2» are manufacturer-specific.^[50]
• Class 2.0 is the official ITU-T version of Class 2 and is commonly known as Class 2.0 to differentiate it from many manufacturer-specific implementations of what is commonly known as «Class 2». It uses a different but standardized command set than the various manufacturer-specific implementations of «Class 2». The relevant ITU-T recommendation is T.32.^[50]
• Class 2.1 is an improvement of Class 2.0 that implements faxing over V.34 (33.6 kbit/s), which boosts faxing speed from fax classes «2» and 2.0, which are limited to 14.4 kbit/s.^[50] The relevant ITU-T recommendation is T.32 Amendment 1.^[50] Class 2.1 fax devices are referred to as «super G3».

Data transmission rate[edit]

Several different telephone-line modulation techniques are used by fax machines. They are negotiated during the fax-modem handshake, and the fax devices will use the highest data rate that both fax devices support, usually a minimum of 14.4 kbit/s for Group 3 fax.

ITU standard	Released date	Data rates (bit/s)	Modulation method
V.27	1988	4800, 2400	PSK
V.29	1988	9600, 7200, 4800	QAM
V.17	1991	14400, 12000, 9600, 7200	TCM
V.34	1994	28800	QAM
V.34bis	1998	33600	QAM
ISDN	1986	64000	digital

Note that «Super Group 3» faxes use V.34bis modulation that allows a data rate of up to 33.6 kbit/s.

Compression[edit]

As well as specifying the resolution (and allowable physical size) of the image being faxed, the ITU-T T.4 recommendation specifies two compression methods for decreasing the amount of data that needs to be transmitted between the fax machines to transfer the image. The two methods defined in T.4 are:^[51]

• Modified Huffman (MH).
• Modified READ (MR) (Relative Element Address Designate^[52]), optional.

An additional method is specified in T.6:^[47]

• Modified Modified READ (MMR).

Later, other compression techniques were added as options to ITU-T recommendation T.30, such as the more efficient JBIG (T.82, T.85) for bi-level content, and JPEG (T.81), T.43, MRC (T.44), and T.45 for grayscale, palette, and colour content.^[53] Fax machines can negotiate at the start of the T.30 session to use the best technique implemented on both sides.

Modified Huffman[edit]

Modified Huffman (MH), specified in T.4 as the one-dimensional coding scheme, is a codebook-based run-length encoding scheme optimised to efficiently compress whitespace.^[51] As most faxes consist mostly of white space, this minimises the transmission time of most faxes. Each line scanned is compressed independently of its predecessor and successor.^[51]

Modified READ[edit]

Modified READ, specified as an optional two-dimensional coding scheme in T.4, encodes the first scanned line using MH.^[51] The next line is compared to the first, the differences determined, and then the differences are encoded and transmitted.^[51] This is effective, as most lines differ little from their predecessor. This is not continued to the end of the fax transmission, but only for a limited number of lines until the process is reset, and a new «first line» encoded with MH is produced. This limited number of lines is to prevent errors propagating throughout the whole fax, as the standard does not provide for error correction. This is an optional facility, and some fax machines do not use MR in order to minimise the amount of computation required by the machine. The limited number of lines is 2 for «Standard»-resolution faxes, and 4 for «Fine»-resolution faxes.

Modified Modified READ[edit]

The ITU-T T.6 recommendation adds a further compression type of Modified Modified READ (MMR), which simply allows a greater number of lines to be coded by MR than in T.4.^[47] This is because T.6 makes the assumption that the transmission is over a circuit with a low number of line errors, such as digital ISDN. In this case, the number of lines for which the differences are encoded is not limited.

JBIG[edit]

In 1999, ITU-T recommendation T.30 added JBIG (ITU-T T.82) as another lossless bi-level compression algorithm, or more precisely a «fax profile» subset of JBIG (ITU-T T.85). JBIG-compressed pages result in 20% to 50% faster transmission than MMR-compressed pages, and up to 30 times faster transmission if the page includes halftone images.

JBIG performs adaptive compression, that is, both the encoder and decoder collect statistical information about the transmitted image from the pixels transmitted so far, in order to predict the probability for each next pixel being either black or white. For each new pixel, JBIG looks at ten nearby, previously transmitted pixels. It counts, how often in the past the next pixel has been black or white in the same neighborhood, and estimates from that the probability distribution of the next pixel. This is fed into an arithmetic coder, which adds only a small fraction of a bit to the output sequence if the more probable pixel is then encountered.

The ITU-T T.85 «fax profile» constrains some optional features of the full JBIG standard, such that codecs do not have to keep data about more than the last three pixel rows of an image in memory at any time. This allows the streaming of «endless» images, where the height of the image may not be known until the last row is transmitted.

ITU-T T.30 allows fax machines to negotiate one of two options of the T.85 «fax profile»:

• In «basic mode», the JBIG encoder must split the image into horizontal stripes of 128 lines (parameter L0 = 128) and restart the arithmetic encoder for each stripe.
• In «option mode», there is no such constraint.

Matsushita Whiteline Skip[edit]

A proprietary compression scheme employed on Panasonic fax machines is Matsushita Whiteline Skip (MWS). It can be overlaid on the other compression schemes, but is operative only when two Panasonic machines are communicating with one another. This system detects the blank scanned areas between lines of text, and then compresses several blank scan lines into the data space of a single character. (JBIG implements a similar technique called «typical prediction», if header flag TPBON is set to 1.)

Typical characteristics[edit]

Group 3 fax machines transfer one or a few printed or handwritten pages per minute in black-and-white (bitonal) at a resolution of 204×98 (normal) or 204×196 (fine) dots per square inch. The transfer rate is 14.4 kbit/s or higher for modems and some fax machines, but fax machines support speeds beginning with 2400 bit/s and typically operate at 9600 bit/s. The transferred image formats are called ITU-T (formerly CCITT) fax group 3 or 4. Group 3 faxes have the suffix .g3 and the MIME type image/g3fax.

The most basic fax mode transfers in black and white only. The original page is scanned in a resolution of 1728 pixels/line and 1145 lines/page (for A4). The resulting raw data is compressed using a modified Huffman code optimized for written text, achieving average compression factors of around 20. Typically a page needs 10 s for transmission, instead of about 3 minutes for the same uncompressed raw data of 1728×1145 bits at a speed of 9600 bit/s. The compression method uses a Huffman codebook for run lengths of black and white runs in a single scanned line, and it can also use the fact that two adjacent scanlines are usually quite similar, saving bandwidth by encoding only the differences.

Fax classes denote the way fax programs interact with fax hardware. Available classes include Class 1, Class 2, Class 2.0 and 2.1, and Intel CAS. Many modems support at least class 1 and often either Class 2 or Class 2.0. Which is preferable to use depends on factors such as hardware, software, modem firmware, and expected use.

Printing process[edit]

Fax machines from the 1970s to the 1990s often used direct thermal printers with rolls of thermal paper as their printing technology, but since the mid-1990s there has been a transition towards plain-paper faxes: thermal transfer printers, inkjet printers and laser printers.

One of the advantages of inkjet printing is that inkjets can affordably print in color; therefore, many of the inkjet-based fax machines claim to have color fax capability. There is a standard called ITU-T30e (formally ITU-T Recommendation T.30 Annex E ^[54]) for faxing in color; however, it is not widely supported, so many of the color fax machines can only fax in color to machines from the same manufacturer.^{[citation needed]}

Stroke speed[edit]

Stroke speed in facsimile systems is the rate at which a fixed line perpendicular to the direction of scanning is crossed in one direction by a scanning or recording spot. Stroke speed is usually expressed as a number of strokes per minute. When the fax system scans in both directions, the stroke speed is twice this number. In most conventional 20th century mechanical systems, the stroke speed is equivalent to drum speed.^[55]

Fax paper[edit]

As a precaution, thermal fax paper is typically not accepted in archives or as documentary evidence in some courts of law unless photocopied. This is because the image-forming coating is eradicable and brittle, and it tends to detach from the medium after a long time in storage.^[56]

Internet fax[edit]

One popular alternative is to subscribe to an Internet fax service, allowing users to send and receive faxes from their personal computers using an existing email account. No software, fax server or fax machine is needed. Faxes are received as attached TIFF or PDF files, or in proprietary formats that require the use of the service provider’s software. Faxes can be sent or retrieved from anywhere at any time that a user can get Internet access. Some services offer secure faxing to comply with stringent HIPAA and Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act requirements to keep medical information and financial information private and secure. Utilizing a fax service provider does not require paper, a dedicated fax line, or consumable resources.^[57]

Another alternative to a physical fax machine is to make use of computer software which allows people to send and receive faxes using their own computers, utilizing fax servers and unified messaging. A virtual (email) fax can be printed out and then signed and scanned back to computer before being emailed. Also the sender can attach a digital signature to the document file.

With the surging popularity of mobile phones, virtual fax machines can now be downloaded as applications for Android and iOS. These applications make use of the phone’s internal camera to scan fax documents for upload or they can import from various cloud services.

Related standards[edit]

• T.4 is the umbrella specification for fax. It specifies the standard image sizes, two forms of image-data compression (encoding), the image-data format, and references, T.30 and the various modem standards.
• T.6 specifies a compression scheme that reduces the time required to transmit an image by roughly 50-percent.
• T.30 specifies the procedures that a sending and receiving terminal use to set up a fax call, determine the image size, encoding, and transfer speed, the demarcation between pages, and the termination of the call. T.30 also references the various modem standards.
• V.21, V.27ter, V.29, V.17, V.34: ITU modem standards used in facsimile. The first three were ratified prior to 1980, and were specified in the original T.4 and T.30 standards. V.34 was published for fax in 1994.^[58]
• T.37 The ITU standard for sending a fax-image file via e-mail to the intended recipient of a fax.
• T.38 The ITU standard for sending Fax over IP (FoIP).
• G.711 pass through — this is where the T.30 fax call is carried in a VoIP call encoded as audio. This is sensitive to network packet loss, jitter and clock synchronization. When using voice high-compression encoding techniques such as, but not limited to, G.729, some fax tonal signals may not be correctly transported across the packet network.
• RFC 3362 image/t38 MIME-type
• SSL Fax An emerging standard that allows a telephone based fax session to negotiate a fax transfer over the internet, but only if both sides support the standard. The standard is partially based on T.30 and is being developed by Hylafax+ developers.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Coopersmith, Jonathan, Faxed: The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) 308 pp.
• «Transmitting Photographs by Telegraph», Scientific American article, 12 May 1877, p. 297

External links[edit]

The dictionary definition of facsimile at Wiktionary
Media related to Fax machines at Wikimedia Commons

• Group 3 Facsimile Communication a ’97 essay with technical details on compression and error codes, and call establishment and release.
• ITU T.30 Recommendation

Last Update: August 9th, 2021

Evolved from an 1840s invention synchronizing the timing mechanism of two clocks into the business powerhouse of the 1980s and 1990s, fax has been a driving force in communication for over a century. Since then, it’s changed again to integrate with the internet and email systems.

Summary

• Yes, it’s 2017 and people still use fax.
• While traditional standalone fax machines have mostly disappeared, fax is a common feature in multifunction (printer/scanner/copier/fax) machines, and has migrated to the internet with online fax services and fax servers.
• Fax (as in the ability to send an image electronically) predates the telephone. France had a service in place (using telegraph lines) between Lyons and Paris at the time of the U.S. Civil War.
• The most common reasons for the use of fax are confirmation pages, the ability to send to a general address, and “it’s the way we’ve always done it.”

On this page

• What is fax?
• Fax basics (sending, receiving, getting a fax number, and more)
• How does fax work
• How fax is regulated and standardized
• How did we get here? A quick history of fax
• Where does the word fax come from? a quick etymology
• Who’s still using fax in 2017?
• How are people faxing today?
• The future of fax
• More resources

What is fax?

Fax (also known as facsimile) is a way of sending a document electronically over a telephone line. When a fax is transmitted, a document is scanned by the sending fax machine, transmitted (usually over a phone line, sometimes over the internet), and printed at the receiving fax machine.

Fax basics

Sending a fax – a quick guide

To send a fax, you will need a document as well as a fax machine, online fax service, or similar technology.

Place a cover sheet (including who the fax is to and from and how many pages) at the front of the document, dial the destination fax number. When the other fax machine confirms that the transmission’s receipt, a confirmation page prints at the sending fax machine.

Receiving a fax – a quick guide

To receive a fax, you will need a way of receiving a fax (fax machine, online fax service, fax software, etc.) set up.

Give your fax number (the phone number assigned to the phone line or fax service) to the person you want to send you a fax and wait for them to send it. Faxes will automatically answer the call.

Getting a fax number

How to get a fax number depends on the type of fax system to be used.

Fax machines and computers running fax software require a landline phone line (VoIP phone lines have a lot of challenges).

For online faxes and internet faxes, most providers will provide the fax number along with the service.

Fax servers require phone lines in the server area.

Setting up a fax machine

Modern fax machines are set up in a very similar way to printers and multifunction print/copy/scan units. The only difference with the fax machine is that it needs to be plugged into an active landline phone line to be able to send and receive faxes.

How does fax work?

Fax works by scanning an image of a document and encodes it into an electronic signal and sends it across a phone line.

At the receiving end, the receiving fax machine decodes the signal and turns it back into a printed image on a page.

How is fax regulated & standardized?

The International Telecommunications Union standardizes fax protocols.

Most developments in fax technology concern the internet and faster transmission speeds.

How did we get here? A quick history of fax

The history of fax (the ability to transmit an image over a distance) is traced to an invention by Alexander Bain in 1843 and functioned as a system of synchronized clocks. Soon after its invention, it operated over telegraph wires and was in service between Paris and Lyons.

Through the last half of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th, it evolved through some inventions including the telautograph, telephotograph, telex, and also through terms of telefacsimile, telefax, and eventually fax as we know it today.

The late 1940s saw the introduction of the first fax “systems” through Western Union to complement their telegram business.

Technology evolved through to the 1980s and 1990s where fax became the primary mode of business communication and a symbol of the times (along with very large cellular phones).

Replaced by email in most situations, fax has maintained a foothold through the 2000s and 2010s in government and large organizations. The Internet and online fax systems have now evolved to include many of the features that made email more competitive.

Etymology and origin of the word “fax”

“Fax” and “facsimile” are the two words most often used today.

Our research indicates that the word “telefacsimile” derived from the word “facsimile” in the 1940s.

“Telefacsimile” was later shortened to “telefax” and then to “fax” (the same way that “telephone” became “phone”).

Where “facsimile” originally meant an exact copy or replica, today it has also come to mean a fax transmission.

Who’s still using fax in 2017?

More people than you’d think.

In our experience, many people are using fax in 2017. Most fax communication involves either government, a large business, or organizations in the legal or healthcare world.

Most fax communication involves either government, a large business, or organizations in the legal or healthcare world. As these types of organizations interact with the everyday lives of people around the world, there is a continued need for fax.

Reasons people are faxing

• A confirmation page that shows receipt of the message
• Fax can be better at sending to a “to whom it may concern” than email
• The ease of signing a document, putting it back into a sheet feeder, dialing a regular phone number, and pressing send
• A “why change it when it works” approach often found in large organizations
• Understanding from a generation that didn’t grow up with today’s technology

Common industries using fax

• Government
• Healthcare
• Legal
• Logistics, Transportation, & Shipping
•  Banking
• Insurance

How are people faxing today?

Fax Machines

The “old fashioned” method of faxing with a machine is still around, and in some offices still going strong.

While the traditional “fax only” machine has seen a large decline, it has migrated along with printers, scanners, and copiers into multifunction units that include all these features.

Online fax services

An online fax service would be better called a “cloud fax” – it’s a lot like a webmail (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) service for fax.

A service provider runs the fax infrastructure (phone line, storage, & software). Faxes can be sent and received through email, a web app, a desktop program, or a smartphone app.

Internet fax, FoIP, and fax servers

Internet fax includes some different technologies and includes any fax that is transitioning the internet.

FoIP stands for “Fax over IP” and is a technology allows for fax machines to communicate over internet addresses. Adoption has been limited (most use we’ve seen has been within the same organization instead of between different organizations) or used with a fax server to centralize communication.

Fax servers have become a staple of many mid-sized to large organizations. Consolidating some fax lines into on central server, they act like a locally hosted online fax service.

Fax software (non-server)

Most fax software turns a computer into a replacement for a fax machine.

The computer connects to a phone line the same way a fax machine does. However, instead of printing off a fax, the software receives it into the program.

Windows (including XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10) has a small selection of fax software. It even includes “Windows Fax and Scan” for free in most versions.

Linux also has a small selection of fax software through open source channels.

Mac has no software available since OS X 10.6, as the USB modem has no longer worked with OS X since that version. Online fax services are the only option we’ve found with MacOS.

Local retail and public service outlets

Print shops, mailbox stores, hotels, and public libraries are common outlets where fax services may be available. Even as the popularity of fax is decreasing, the need for fax remains and many “office services” retail outlets see a neighborhood fax service as a way to get people into the door.

The future of fax

While fax volume worldwide is still on the decline, our prediction is that fax will continue to have a place in the world for the core applications such as confirmation pages, the ability to send to a general address, and a legal/regulatory framework that is slow to change.

For many organizations (and governments), the cost savings from switching to a new technology or abandoning fax do not outweigh the risks involved in the move.

Over time, regulations will evolve, laws will update, and technology will change. The day will come when screech of a fax handshake is no longer heard. For the time being, however, we have the fax.

More resources

• Wikipedia – Fax – Wikipedia’s entry on the fax. Includes an overview of the technology as well as transmission standards.
• Encyclopædia Brittanica – Fax (communications) – Another encyclopedia entry on the fax. Includes history as well as faxing works.
• Dictionary.com – fax – definitions of the word “fax.”
• Techtarget – Fax definition – in depth definition of the fax from TechTarget’s Networking community.
• Financial Times – the Joy of Fax – an article on fax in today’s technological world.
• ThoughtCo – History of the Fax Machine and Alexander Bain – a history of fax machines and fax’s inventor, Alexander Bain.
• How Stuff Works – History of the Fax Machine – History of fax machines from how stuff works
• Secret Life of Machines – The Secret Life of the Fax Machine – a cartoon overviewing the invention of fax machines.
• Fax Authority – the History of Fax – our guide to the history of the fax machine, from its invention to today’s present day devices.
• Fax Authority – the Ultimate Guide to Online Fax – our guide to online fax services.

• Slides: 10

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