Jim, how does this compare to internet-only services, like eFax? Especially since they handle not just outbound faxes but also incoming faxes. Systems that work through general purpose fax-as-printer drivers work with all of your PC applications, not just a few Office apps.

Advanced internet-oriented fax apps include OCR for extracting text from incoming faxes, document management for tracking sent/received documents, notifications, fax-spam filters, queuing/retry service, and fax distribution-list/broadcast services.

You usually have to subscribe to these services for $150-250 year, including a fax number.

Prior art: my functional spec for Skype2Fax, August 2005.

"Fundamentally, sending a fax is an asynchronous one-way activity that has "ridden" the phone network to transmit a document to a device that is able to decode the fax signal back into a readable paper document.. " Aah, the beauty of this explanation. And I always thought it to be a totally illogical process: put a sheet of paper in on the top of a miraculous machine and it comes back below.

Jim, just fyi that PamFax adds a toolbar button in Word and Excel which allows you to fax from there. It is almost as having a printer driver (which is a good suggestion).

DickS
www.pamfax.biz

i use www.efax.com, nicely integrated in ms outlook 2003 and ms 2007. maybe soon we'll see a fax for msn messenger :) hahaha. how safe is it to send confidential faxes (with signatures and stuff like that) over a system which allows dual login without notification and let's not forget that your skype login are the same as the login on the skype.forum.com - not very safe i would say... but hey it's great to see this communications layer added. hopefully pamconsults fills up the security gaps where skype left the race :)

great now we have 256-AES encrypted faxes. so the legal department at skype can use this to send faxes to "rebel bloggers" hilarious. would the faxes as easy to be intercepted as are skype chats ?

@Phil, PamFax is initially intended to be a "Send Only" service where in a few steps you can easily fax a document to up to 15 recipients. They have left the incoming fax space to those who have already specialized in receiving faxes, such as efax. Simplicity and spontaneity along with a pay-per-use business model meet the needs of their target market space. I (and most small businesses) already have a fax printer to receive faxes; it's the sending that I would like to do directly from my PC. And WinFax is a nightmare to install and manage. What you are talking about are larger enterprise fax requirements that have an entirely different set of business processes to deal with fax traffic.

hey great. Now all rush quickly to Wallmart to get your latest promotion of (s)pamfax :) Quick, quick we are running out stock.

I mean why would we need this if we can send pdf-files over skype :)

PamFax sounds neat but its very 'MeTo'. It's pretty much a knockoff of Skax but with a lower per page rate. Neither sends faxes to Skype even though they both claim to. The reason is simple, Skype File Transfer is horribly slow and there are endless problems with streaming, as finally admitted recently on the Skype Develepors Blog. In fact all PAMFax and Schrax do is to upload a file and fax number(s) using http then convert the file to a fax image format and bang it out over the telephone network, (but not to Skype users). This method limits the user to a restricted number of file formats and applications. PLUSFAX OTOH uses a Print Driver which means no limitation on the applications whose files can be faxed. You simply open any application and print using the PLUSFAX printer. PLUSFAX is also much cheaper, and transmission is completely free to 10 countries (after a one time setup fee) provided you don't mind some very discrete advertising on the cover page, and still much cheaper without advertising. There's lots more to PLUSFAX. You can fax the same document to any mix of Skype users, Email addresses and Fax Numbers, you can Fax a document direct from any fax machine and have it delivered to a Skype user, and you can get +FAXIn numbers in many countries that work just like legacy 'Fax to Email' except your incoming faxes are delivered via Skype, or you can just use a +FAXMe button which has the same effect but is free.
PLUSFAX is altogether a much much more complete Fax for Skype solution than either Skax or PAMFax.

I have to agree with Terry. I tried the PLUSFAX service and it works great! I tested a fax to myself and it was very straightforward. Received a transmission confirmation via e-mail. I then sent the same fax to Australia and that worked well too.

Faxzero.com also allows you to send up to two 3-page faxes per day through the web (if you don't mind a simple advertisement on the cover page). I've used this service and it's very fast, straightforward and reliable.

well, i recently discovered a great online fax provider which i'm with for 2 months now. 101Fax.com has this pay-per-use faxing service that lets me pay just for the sent faxes. great discovery. their monthly plans are relatively low compared to most providers out there.

I use Skype all day, so receiving faxes via Skype chat is a great benefit. With +FAXIn a couple of clicks and the fax is on my screen, and only PLUSFAX can do that. But that's just the icing on the cake. Since using PLUSFAX I've given up my fax line and most of my faxes go free even though I regularly send them to more than a dozen countries. My fax bill is down from over $30 a month to around $12 mostly for the inbound fax to Skype number.