This page is long since irrelevant. It is left here for historical purposes only.
Telstra finally increased the line rental price one too many times. At $30/month, it was not worth the expense of keeping a separate Fax line, even though my ADSL ran over that line. So after a few months switching over my ADSL (the net result of which will mean I will be paying a fifth the price for five times the bandwidth), it was time to cancel my Fax landline and find a Fax to email (Fax2Email) gateway instead.
There are a variety of options to choose from, all with varying costs and services.
A quick trip to Google Australia, search for “Internet Fax”, restricted to Australian sites, and paying close attention to sponsored links and reviews, lead to a number of potential services:
My requirements were fairly simple, I wanted an Australian number, preferably Perth, with minimal monthly cost as I receive a very low number of faxes, sent directly to my email account.
Tri-Tel was $24.95/month, so that was too expensive. eFax is $19.80/month for an Australian number, so that was pretty rich too.
mBox looks very nice at $9.95/month. They now also offer a 30 day free trial and a test fax page so you can verify that their system will work with your email client. Oddly, they are "powered by eFax", but cost half the price.
In the end, I went with Ozefax, $7/month for 30 pages. They answered a support question very promptly. It would be nice if their web site offered a test Fax email with a two or three page sample Fax and a short voice mail message so potential customers could see what they would recieve and verify that everything works. It would also be nice if they offered online management of your account (receive formats, services, and email addresses).
A more recent entrant is axiatel. Their prices start from a competitive $10/month for unlimited received faxes. They let you easily receive a test fax, as well as having a 30 day free trial.
There looks to be very little separating mBox, axiatel and Ozefax - Ozefax is slightly less expensive, but the other two also offer good value.
Since starting with Ozefax, I have received a handful of faxes, and while the quality is pretty poor, it is a fax after all, and the faxes are readable, so I'm fairly happy with the service - and it is saving me around $300/year in Telstra line rental.
Written: 2006-01-13
Updated: 2010-05-01