yes virginia, free faxing

[freeburma@xxxxxxxxx]

ider@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I do not think there is such a thing as free faxing, since
> it involves public telephone companies no matter how and
> by what method the fax is being sent. There is no way to
> avoid the telephone lines linking the fax machine to the
> exchange. Simple, isn't it?
> Imre
> (As the saying goes: There is no such thing as a free meal.)

Imre & all,
It is possible to fax emails for free via the internet, however the 
locations to which you may fax are spotty and service is unreliable.
There is a free lunch.  It's just not a very good lunch.
But free is free.  

The idea is this: a volunteer from every area code (or long 
distance zone) declares his fax-modem available to fax out any emails 
that get relayed to it.  He runs a background program which 
automatically receives email, checks to make sure it's a local call,
dials the fax-modem, and sends it out.  (this software is all writen.) 
That's it.  It's free because all long distance calls are reduced to
local calls via the internet.  The only other hard cost involved in
faxing is the paper and the mechanical machine to print it on, which
are covered by the recipient.  
the catch is- you have to have enough volunteers to cover all area
codes, and they have to be reliable.  although the system never reached
this state, i think it is still running.  details are available at the 
electronic freedom foundation:
http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_info/Technical/net-fax.faq

(by the way, numerous programs exist to do exactly the same thing
with voice data, effectively making unlimited long distance calling
available for the price of 14.4kbps internet connection)

anyway, as happens with all good free things, a business was created
to make money from it.  fortunately, this business is doing a great job
so far, it's cheap and very convenient.  it's called fawaway.com and, 
as i mentioned before i use it often.  if you're interested, you can 
get more info by sending an email to info@xxxxxxxxxxxx

glen
ps- all this info has been/is available in the "tools" section of the
free burma website.
-- 
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