Faxing has always been a critical part of any business and will still be for years to come. Unfortunately this is the one element that companies do not consider when looking at saving costs regarding their telecommunication expenditure.

Faxing in South Africa has evolved rapidly over the last 7 years, the biggest step being the offering of free fax to e-mail. This was a revolutionary product at its time and thousands of people jumped on the free fax to e-mail bandwagon. The only component of free fax to e-mail that people were not aware of was the high transmission costs of sending to these fax numbers which amounted to approximately 4 times the cost of a normal fax at that stage.

Utilizing new technologies Virtual Fax and ECN has now changed the faxing industry once again, by creating an innovative product offering that finally fits the pocket of the consumer.

To fully understand this product, one must be aware that there are 2 elements in faxing: the receiving of faxes as well as the sending. With regards to the receiving end of a fax solution, we have had to provide a fax to e-mail solution that brings down the cost for the sender. The cost of sending a fax to a 086 fax to e-mail number is charged at 3 times the cost of a normal fax call which is charged at 57c per minute. Sending a fax to the new Virtual Fax to e-mail product is charged at 79c per minute to the sender, thus creating a more affordable price to the sender. All faxes received by the Virtual Fax users are also stored online and available for retrieval via the web which now enables the consumer to utilize cloud technology in the fax market.

The Virtual Fax product has created the largest change regarding the sending of faxes. Least cost routing in the fax market has never been done and with IP technology it is now been made possible. The first element that had to change in the fax market was the billing intervals. The Virtual Fax product is the first to do pure per second billing on all faxes sent no matter what the destination of the fax . The Virtual Fax product also introduced new fax rates into the market that allows the customer to save, anywhere in the region of 22% and 64% on their monthly fax bill.

Fax over IP has been a phrase that was not mentioned due to the instability of the technology, however, by combining a few technologies the Virtual Fax product has shown that Fax over IP is both cost-effective and reliable. ECN and Virtual Fax – lowering the cost of doing business.

For more information regarding the product and offering visit www.virtual-fax.co.za.