Faxes Still “Big in Japan”
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
That is the problem of having a system that works. It is expensive to replace, a pain to learn for users and difficult to justify the initial investment.
Even if long-term, obviously, digital signatures and electronic mail will be a better system, that initial cost overshadows future gains.
> Japanese ministries and agencies use faxes when handling highly confidential information, including court procedures and police work, and the Hokkaido Shimbun said there were fears that exclusively online communication would result in security lapses.
And, they are not wrong. The simplicity of a one-to-one communication makes it harder to misuse. Efficiency usually is an antitheses to safety.
The digitization of Japan is inevitable. But, it is going to take a long time until a new system has the trust, the user-base and acceptance of the old fax one.
I once worked for a company that was very unreliable when it came to paying their employees, and I tried to terminate my contract with a fax. There was only a small issue, they didn't have a fax machine.
I don't normally like to say good things about solicitors (not estate agents, I was buying, so I didn't have to pay them, but I hate them too), but mostly they did OK.
Here is its credo:
Paper is official.
Paper is non-falsifiable, especially if you stamp it.
Paper can't lie.
Paper comes with a date that is trustworthy.
Paper can be sent through mail of fax.
Paper can't be sent by email. Computers are where fakes are made, don't trust computers.
I started my career in Medicare claims processing, which I guess has been nearly 15 years now. All claims had to be sent by dial up modem, and documents by fax at the time, for 'security reasons.' I'm unsure if that's changed, but that was a huge surprise to new billers. Many complained they couldn't even find a dial up modem to buy anymore.
I think that many places have their workflow that they want to keep using, because it's more convenient to them. But as a customer, I don't care. I'm paying you; you can use a workflow that's convenient for me, even if it's less convenient for you.
That is effectively what a modern dedicated fax machine is. They are very cheap commodity items. The issue here is not the hardware, but the use of faxes at all.
There is also iFax, which is supported by several vendors, which is essentially like a fax over e-mail. Many multipurpose fax/printer/scanner machines support it.
Just because there are technologically superior solutions is hardly what matters.
You need to factor in the experience of the users.
Besides that, there is still no replacement for phone numbers. A phone number immediately returns if it is available to receive a transmission, and a fax on the other end confirms that it is set up, and you can be pretty sure that it isn't just going to languish in an unread mailbox somewhere. A phone number also takes more effort to set up, so will probably be treated better.
Under certain circumstances, I would be more comfortable faxing documents somewhere than emailing a pdf somewhere.
They aren't suggesting that every user sets up their own raspberry PI, but instead suggesting that IT can transparently replace the technology.
Thank you for actually understanding and explaining what I meant. It's a nice change.
It sounded like you were saying you wanted to change the interface somewhat. The reason that I thought that was because if it was a 100% transparent interface identical to an existing fax experience, then there are already solutions like that, but we just don't notice them because they are so transparent.
Regular consumers sending faxes over copper already have their fax calls digitized, encrypted, and compressed. And offices have pretty simple solutions to manage fax numbers from their servers. I think Exchange server might be able to do it out of the box now.
The reason I compared it to the "dropbox" comment was that I think that it would be a case of needless over-optimization.
This is what the OP said:
> Sending the "fax" simply emails a PDF of the scanned pages over the internet and then prints the "fax" automatically?
Which, I read as implying that the user would have to enter something like an email address, to which I replied:
> Besides that, there is still no replacement for phone numbers. A phone number immediately returns if it is available to receive a transmission, and a fax on the other end confirms that it is set up, and you can be pretty sure that it isn't just going to languish in an unread mailbox somewhere. A phone number also takes more effort to set up, so will probably be treated better.
Of course, if an IT department mapped an POTS phone numbers to their mail server, and then had that email print out a pdf attachment on the other end, then yes, that would be fine.
But, actually this is done already in some places anyway. My old university had a system where incoming faxes were converted into emails and forwarded as email attachments, and I don't see why the IT dept could not have also configured it to automatically print out incoming emails, or even relay to an outgoing fax line.
But it does seem to me like a lot of trouble.
I believe they used a wax cylinder and a make-or-break stylus switch. The cylinder rotated, the stylus progressed down the image in a slow spiral fashion, dropping into the grooves the author had made in the wax. The signal was used on the other end in a similar apparatus with a pen, which would make marks when the stylus dropped into a wax divot (part of a letter) and raise the pen when no mark was detected. The resulting image was a sort of raster-scan of the original.
I like this. I used to be Anti-Fax, or basically Pro Digital All things when I was young. Now increasingly I want to go back to the good old Analog world.
A few weeks ago I was frantically trying to find an available covid vaccination slot.
I found one doctor who was supposed to have some doses available.
Emailed with no response.
Phone line was either busy or no answer.
I sent a fax!
Even asked my son to draw a corona vaccination to get their attention. Wrote a nice handwritten note that I hope to get on the waiting list.
Got a phone call back with an appointment after 20 min :)
I guess they hardly get any faxes, and those who come in are super boring. So I managed to get through.
From what I heard it was an extremely successful tactic landing quite a few callbacks and interviews, compared to blasting them out online.
Thing is, nowadays faxes are used so rarely that when they are, they immediately catch the attention of the recipient (assuming they don't end up as PDF in some mailbox that nobody opens... this happens too).