A WWW‐assisted fax system for Internet fax‐to‐fax communication

This paper describes a WWW‐assisted fax system (WAX) that is developed to provide reliable and enhanced Internet fax‐to‐fax communication. It integrates the easy‐to‐use WWW interface with conventional faxing procedures, resulting in an Internet fax system which not only circumvents the cost of long distance fax charges but also adds enhanced functionality not otherwise possible. The WAX system comprises two gateways, namely, the Fax‐In and the Fax‐Out Gateways. The Fax‐In Gateway accepts fax messages over Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and stores them in a transit database. The system interfaces with the user over the WWW to provide access to his stored faxes, with the basic ability to send them out over the Internet to recipients. The Fax‐Out Gateway receives fax files from the Fax‐In Gateway through the Internet and transmits them out to the intended recipients via the local PSTN. WAX users do not require any additional hardware except for a fax machine and a personal computer with Internet connectivity to gain access to WAX via any WWW browser. In addition, WAX provides a host of other enhanced features such as the ability to construct mini‐faxes from a single incoming fax as well as dynamically attach cover notes to outgoing faxes.