A few weeks ago, I bought a $150 faxbridge (model FXB21) from Nextiva, for use with their vFax service. The device is almost unmentioned on their website. The manufacturer is Axacore, which doesn't mention it on their website.
I thought that the faxbridge was an analog telephone adapter optimized for faxing over VOIP, but it's not. The faxbridge connects to a standard fax machine. When you fax out, the faxbridge accepts the entire fax, then converts it to some digital format and uploads the converted fax to Nextiva's server, which then faxes it to the destination number that your machine dialed.
One clever aspect here is that no matter which number your fax machine dials, the faxbridge "answers" the call with fax tones and takes the fax. If the number your fax machine dials is not a fax number, you won't learn that until a few minutes later, when you get an error message from Nextiva, saying that your fax destination can't accept a fax. (Whereas on a genuine fax machine connected to the PSTN, you'd catch the error immediately upon dialing and getting something other than fax tones.)
Faxes sent to your Factiva fax number are routed in reverse: Factiva's servers receive the fax, then convert it to a digital format and download that to the faxbridge, which then "calls" your fax machine, which then prints the fax.
Functionally, this resembles faxing over POTS lines, which is essentially flawless (whereas faxing over VOIP lines works about 90 percent of the time, at best).
Faxtiva vFax service costs $4.95 per month for up to 500 pages.
I still have a number of small business clients who resist giving up their POTS fax lines because these lines are so reliable. The faxbridge might be the alternative, finally. (Also flawless is faxing over Comcast's telephone lines, but they're kind of pricey. Other cable ISPs may have similarly reliable phone lines for faxing).
By the way, Nextiva is a mildly dysfunctional company. Their website, customer service, and tech support are all a little goofy. Nextiva is owned by Voxee, a Singaporean company, and I suspect that the managers of Nextiva haven't bridged certain cultural gaps, resulting in the oddness that I've noticed (which is not a deal-breaker).
Has any of you used the faxbridge that I'm talking about?
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