Fax Receiving Too Slow in Panther

[CathC]

I have a client who sends most of my work via fax (it is marked-up manuscript). He has been complaining quite alot about how long this takes. I receive faxes on my Mac (10.3.9), and they print out when received. This client says he sends 25 pages and his fax machine says "sending" (tying it up) for a good 30-40 minutes. He also has said that sending the same pages to someone with an actual fax machine (the publisher) only takes about 5-10 minutes. He is pressuring me to purchase a "real" fax machine, rather than using the computer, which I really don't want to do. Is there anything I can do at my end to speed up fax receiving?

Thanks for any help,
Cathie C

 

[jeremy.king]

Outside of testing your phone line, have you considered the online services such as eFaxFree?

 

[CathC]

No, I have not tried that. Does anyone know if it works faster? That, too, presents another problem in that I sometimes receive many e-mails in a day, quite a few with large attachments, and have to keep a constant eye to prevent the mailbox from becoming "full." I will check it out, though. Thanks.

Cathie

 

[MisterMe]

I have a client who sends most of my work via fax (it is marked-up manuscript). He has been complaining quite alot about how long this takes. I receive faxes on my Mac (10.3.9), and they print out when received. This client says he sends 25 pages and his fax machine says "sending" (tying it up) for a good 30-40 minutes. He also has said that sending the same pages to someone with an actual fax machine (the publisher) only takes about 5-10 minutes. He is pressuring me to purchase a "real" fax machine, rather than using the computer, which I really don't want to do. Is there anything I can do at my end to speed up fax receiving?

Thanks for any help,
Cathie C

The speed at which you send or receive faxes depends on lots of things. The fastest fax is 33.4 kbps for Super G3. If you do not have a G3 fax modem--and chances are you don't--then your modem probably tops out a 14.4 kbps or possibly 28.8. Be it 33.4 or 14.4, these are only top speeds. Your fax modem cannot receive the fax any faster that the machine on the other end sends the fax. Between the sending machine and your fax modem is a vast telecommunications network which is designed for voice communication. Any reduction an quality anywhere along the way will slow the transmission.

You are judging speed only by the rate at which pages are transmitted. This is a very poor metric. High speed fax uses compression. The more "regular" a page's bitmap, the higher its compression ratio, and the faster the page will be transmitted. As a page's bits are more randomly distributed, the lower its compression ratio, and the slower it will be transmitted.

One more thing--fax resolution varies. Fax used to be exclusively low-resolution. Modern faxes have resolutions that rival copying machines. The higher the resolution, the larger the bitmap transmitted, and the slower the page transmission rate.

You may read all about fax here.