Fax technology is certainly important—businesses have relied on it for successful operations for decades. But traditional fax hasn’t aged gracefully.
From outdated technology to data security risks to increased costs, the issues associated with traditional fax abound, and businesses need a new solution to securely transmit documents from point A to point B.
Enter cloud fax.
Cloud fax is a service that enables users to send and receive fax documents over the internet without relying on a fax machine, phone line, or on-prem servers.
Today, we’ll highlight the top benefits of switching to a cloud fax solution in 2024.
The Problems with Traditional Fax Machines
Analog fax machines leverage a specific voice transmission system called Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) to send documents from one machine to another. POTS uses copper wires to establish a dedicated circuit between two points and ultimately facilitate communication between them.
Relying on POTS technology, traditional fax can’t keep up with the global, multi-location nature of modern enterprise businesses. Risks include:
- Physical Document Security: Just picture a document with sensitive personal information lying exposed on a delivery tray or someone accidentally typing the wrong digit on a fax number. Traditional fax increases the risk that documents could be accessed or tampered with by unauthorized persons or even lost altogether.
- Digital Document Security: Traditional fax doesn’t have the same security measures, like encryption, that a digital solution would, exposing the line to security breaches.
- Regulatory Compliance: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed order 19-72a1, stipulating that anyone using POTS must secure an alternate solution. This is the perfect time for businesses to assess their options and switch to a cloud provider that can build custom solutions for their needs.
Plus, no one wants to be subjected to that infamous traditional fax dial tone.
5 Reasons To Switch To Cloud Fax
A digital fax solution provides businesses with cost-effective, scalable solutions without the headache. Let’s review the top 5 reasons cloud fax can enhance your business operations this year.
1. You’ll Save Money
Often, when you think about upgrading your tech stack, all you can see are dollar signs. But switching to cloud fax won’t break the bank—it might actually save you money.
Since the FCC has deregulated the use of POTS lines, communication companies that own these lines are scrambling, leading to bloated prices. We’re talking with users who are seeing their cost structures doubling or tripling for POTS lines in some cases. And you don’t want to wind up spending more for an older, less reliable technology.
In addition to saving on the operational POTS line, cloud fax eliminates the need for costly fax machine hardware and ongoing maintenance of that fleet.
2. Documents Will Be Better Secured
Cybersecurity is always top of mind and for good reason. Just in the first half of 2024, there has been a reported 1 billion+ data breach victims, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center.
Your business’ analog fax machine opens you up to data integrity flaws. Traditional fax machines lack the sophisticated firewalls and encryption technology that cloud fax solutions provide. At SymQuest, our cloud fax technology comes with advanced, robust digital security measures built-in to any package. Unlike other providers, we won’t upsell you for better security because, for us, security is standard.
But digital document security is only one piece of the puzzle. A centralized cloud fax system eliminates the risk of lost, misplaced, or misfiled documents.
3. You’ll Comply With Strict Regulatory Standards
Businesses like schools, law offices, financial institutions, and hospitals interact with sensitive, personal data all day long. And that data is protected by regulatory standards like HIPAA, GDPR, FISMA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, SOX, FERPA, and more.
These institutions need a safe way to send information across locations and between need-to-know employees. For a long time, traditional fax was the only option. That’s because email wasn’t secure enough. But cloud fax enables this information transfer to happen via the internet while remaining compliant with the strict laws and regulations that permeate their industries.
4. Faxes Will Be More Reliable
Earlier, we mentioned that the FCC issued an order moving people away from traditional POTS lines. For companies using traditional fax, cost increases are just the tip of the iceberg.
Businesses also need to be mindful of the long-term reliability of this method. Given the shift, your access to these lines could be phased out or eliminated abruptly, leaving you (and your data-sharing capabilities) in the lurch.
It may also be more challenging to resolve any issues that crop up. With traditional fax, you need to toggle between the phone company and the hardware supplier—each often points to the other, leaving you in an endless cycle of help desk tickets.
Here’s an example.
Say you’re a dentist waiting on your patient’s lab results from the hospital. Given the HIPAA data, the hospital will only send the information via fax. But your fax machine is down. The hardware provider diagnoses a phone line issue, and the phone company diagnoses a hardware issue. That dental office is in limbo and can’t get the information it needs to serve its patients—that’s not great for business.
Outsourcing to a cloud fax services provider makes troubleshooting easy as your technician can test (and fix) the hardware and software, ultimately reducing operational downtime.
5. You Can Enhance (and Customize) Your Workflows
Cloud fax can integrate into different business applications, streamlining your existing workflows. This might involve configuring API connections, installing plugins, or using middleware for seamless integration. There are many different types of applications that cloud fax is able to integrate with, such as:
- Electronic medical records (EMR)
- Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
- Customer relationship management (CRM)
- Legacy systems like SAP, Oracle, or Microsoft SharePoint
Consider this example of how cloud technology can support school systems.
Imagine a nurse in an elementary school system. They are assigned to three schools, each with its own dedicated fax line. With a traditional fax system, the nurse could only access a student’s information when they were physically present in that location.
But a cloud fax system would permit that nurse to securely access the files from any of those pre-authorized lines from anywhere. Likely, they’d route it to a file-sharing system like Google Drive or Microsoft 365, where they could access and interact with that information.
This system saves valuable time and money by streamlining document access and management while remaining HIPAA-compliant.
Safeguard Your Documents with Cloud Fax
Fax machines have served businesses well for decades. But costly upkeep and clunky operations are forcing companies to consider alternative solutions.
Cloud fax provides businesses with a reliable, secure, and cost-effective method for sending and receiving sensitive documents via the internet.
Instead of waiting for your POTS line costs to skyrocket or disappear in a flash, consider a comprehensive consultation with a cloud fax expert to explore how your business could benefit from the cloud.
At SymQuest, we evaluate your business operations, landscape, and regulatory requirements to configure a personalized cloud fax system that meets your needs. Contact an expert today.
