Traditional Faxing is one of the most secure (and compliant) ways to get a document where it needs to go.
But that doesn’t mean we have to do it the way it’s always been done—machines, copper wires, costly phone line bills, the tiresome “fax sound,” and all.
Digital fax, also known as eFaxing, is a cloud-based solution with a modern, streamlined approach that retains the seamless document transmission capabilities you enjoy from traditional fax while cutting costs for businesses of all sizes.
Today, we’ll examine how eFaxing can save your business money in the long term.
Understanding Digital Fax
eFaxing, or electronic faxing, is a digital method of sending and receiving faxes via the internet rather than traditional phone lines. Think about it like a more secure and compliant version of sending an email. This technology enables secure and efficient document transmission without the need for dedicated fax machines or phone lines.
Digital fax solutions convert documents into digital formats for internet transmission. You can send a fax directly from devices you use everyday like computers, smartphones, or tablets, and receive incoming faxes through a secure online portal or via a secure email attachment.
With this system, you eliminate many of the headaches of traditional faxing from physical costs like paper, ink, toner, and the fax machine to operational ones by making the process much more efficient and aligned with how people conduct their business.
eFax technology has several key features:
- Digital document conversion
- Cloud-based transmission, encryption, and storage
- Multi-device and location compatibility
- Integration with existing digital systems
- Eliminates busy signals for incoming faxes
One of its most impressive benefits is how it can save businesses a good deal of money. The core reason for this is the steep cost of traditional fax machines.
The Rising Costs of Traditional Faxing
It turns out that upgrading your tech stack doesn’t have to be more expensive than your legacy systems—at least, that’s the case with faxing.
Traditional faxing has become more and more expensive across the country; people are seeing their bills double overnight. This surge in expenses is primarily due to the deregulation of POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) lines, and the cascading financial aftermath that comes with that.
Deregulation of POTS Lines
POTS lines are traditional copper phone lines that connect many telephones, fax machines, and other devices. Due to their anachronistic setup, the cost of upkeep, and changing business needs, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided there needed to be a broader shift away from this tech.
In August 2019, the FCC issued a mandate requiring the phase-out of POTS lines nationwide by August 2, 2022. This deregulation has led to a dramatic shift in the telecommunications landscape, with providers no longer obligated to maintain the aging copper wire infrastructure that supports traditional fax services.
Without incentive to maintain the original POTS infrastructure, the door was wide open for price hikes. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing.
Increasing Rates for Traditional Fax
Here’s the thing: traditional fax lines are expensive for telephone companies to maintain, and we’re noticing that cost is passed on (and then some) to the end consumer.
While you won’t experience price hikes when you’re under contract, as soon as that contract elapses, you can expect a hefty spike to your monthly bill.
For example, we’ve been speaking with clients who have seen their rates more than double—from $45 a month to $100 per line. If you’re an enterprise or even a medium-sized business with 5+ lines, this could put a big dent in your budget.
To add insult to injury, you’re not getting a better experience by remaining tethered to your old tech. You’ll get the same level of service for double the cost without improving workflows, operations, or other efficiencies along the way.
In comparison, a digital faxing solution is secure (via encryption), compliant, simple to use, and because of the flexible cost model, less expensive.
Case Study: Local School District Budget Squeezed by Traditional Fax
At SymQuest, we work with businesses and institutions like education, healthcare, professional services, and more, all of which require faxing as part of their daily operations.
Let’s look at a case study of how much more expensive maintaining traditional fax lines would be for a local school district.
A school’s new IT director was exploring quotes from their traditional fax provider and other digital solutions. They were initially under contract for $45 per month per line. Their provider let them know that the price would increase to $75 per line when their contract expired.
Let’s do some math.
If they have 10 lines at $75 per line for 12 months, that’s $9,000 from their budget dedicated to fax alone—a 66% increase in total faxing costs.
With schools securing their budget and funding annually, this increase was something that they weren’t prepared for. To compensate, they’d need to take money from other places, potentially cutting valuable programs.
That wasn’t an option they were willing to pursue.
Since they handle personal, sensitive, HIPAA-protected information that requires fax technology to remain compliant, we worked with them to build a custom digital fax solution that met their operational, regulatory, and budgetary requirements.
In the end, they saved two-thirds on total spend in year one. By year two they saw even bigger savings via professional services and ongoing operational costs.
Additional eFax Cost-Saving Capabilities
The deregulation of existing POTS copper lines and the subsequent price hikes from communication companies offers the strongest financial use case to switch to cloud fax. But it’s not the only way businesses can save money by going digital.
- Remove Hardware Costs: An immediate benefit of a digital fax solution is not needing to buy, maintain, service, or replace fax machines, fax boards, or copiers. You’ll also see a reduction in ancillary supplies like paper, ink, and toner.
- Reduce Operational Expenses: When switching to eFaxing, businesses often see lower monthly fees due to the subscription-based pricing models of this service. It also makes scalability much easier as you can add or remove functionalities as you go. Also, if you open a new location, you won’t need to pull the copper line over to the new office—you just need an internet connection.
- Compliance Without The Price Tag: A concern businesses have with walking away from traditional fax is regulatory compliance in their industries. eFaxing provides a compliant and even more secure way to send and receive sensitive documents. Our cloud fax service is compliant with various regulatory bodies like HIPAA, GDPR, FISMA, and more. By using a compliant solution, you avoid potential penalties, fees, and audit issues, which can run thousands of dollars per violation.
- Streamline Business Processes: Operational inefficiencies eat into productivity, which in turn, curbs profitability. eFaxing can integrate into your existing processes and workflows to make conducting business easier. As we mentioned earlier, you can send or receive a fax from any device in any location. eFaxing also integrates with email systems and document management software automatically routing the file to the correct location.
As you can see, eFaxing can certainly save your business money, but you might be wondering how much you can expect to save when you switch.
How Much Will Your Business Save with eFax?
The amount your organization could save by switching from traditional fax to eFaxing depends on your size, structure, and operational procedures.
Enterprise-level businesses with 10+ fax lines typically notice significant cost savings within the first year of switching due to the volume and scale with which they’re engaging the technology.
Typically, we’re seeing digital fax saving businesses the most money within 36-60 months of adopting the system, though many can reap the financial benefits in the first one or two years.
When we’re working with a prospective client, we can accurately project costs for 3-5 years, which aids in your business’s short- and medium-term budgeting needs.
If you’re wondering whether or not this solution could be right for you, consider a free assessment. This process will audit your current fax set up, usage, and costs and thoroughly project the cost and effectiveness of a digital fax transformation.
Digital Fax: The Cost-Effective Future of Business Communication
The writing is on the wall—or rather, it's in the cloud. Traditional faxing is becoming increasingly expensive and outdated, while eFaxing offers a path to modernization and cost reduction.
eFaxing is an important step forward for secure business communication via document transmission. It has tremendous potential to save your business money in the short- and long-term while improving your operational efficiency.
Whether you're a small operation looking to cut costs or a large enterprise aiming to streamline communications across multiple locations, there's a digital faxing solution that can help.
Don't let outdated technology hold your business back. Explore digital faxing options and take the first step toward more efficient, cost-effective, and future-ready business communication.
