Wise up to Faxwise (faxwise.com)

Member Name: campb3ll

Product:	faxwise.com
Date:	17/07/01 (227 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free UK fax number, No messy software needed, Competitive prices

Disadvantages: Sending faxes is a premium service, Closing down on Aug 31, 2001

**UPDATE**

Effective as of now, Faxwise have ceased to operate the free fax-to-email service. In fact, they are going to close down all their services due to "circumstances beyond [their] control" and a mysterious third party who has failed to provide "acceptable" services. Up till August 31, 2001, the premium email-to-fax service will continue but will not necessarily be reliable. I'm deepy disappointed as Faxwise really did seem to be a useful contender in the free fax provision sector. Another internet company bites the dust ... the last paragraph of my original opinion is starting to look a bit ironic now.

**Original Opinion Below**

Yet another free fax service. Simple and convinient for receiving occassional faxes.

All you need is an email account and a program that can view .TIFF files. When you sign up, you get a 0870 number; it is free to you - anyone faxing you is charged at the UK national rate. The site estimates a fax attachment (faxes arrive in your mail box) of 2 pages would take 1 minute to download over a 56 k modem.

Faxwise say they "discourage" spam faxes. You are encouraged to report spam faxes at info @ faxwise dot co dot uk. This is a good sign. No, really, it is. I have signed up to other free fax services before and received spam faxes in my mail box. So, Faxwise's wised up policy is a good thing.

Obviously, like most free fax services, this is essentially a "light" version of their premium service. In this case, it's called M2X and costs £29 GBP plus VAT (17.5%) for a single end user licence i.e. for an individual account. This allows you to send faxes via email - just type your email and send in the format <country code><area code><phone number> @ <faxwise.com>. Phone/fax call charges are extra. For example, faxing London costs 3 pence per minute and faxing other UK 01 numbers cost 5 pence per minute. Hmm, I'm not happy a
bout this - how do you know how many minutes it will take for your zippy little email to be converted into a fax by the Faxwise servers? If you are tempted, you can test this service and have a fax sent to your UK fax machine/number - http://www.faxwise.com/demo.html.

Pros and cons? The free fax service is very useful if you only receive occassional faxes. It's not too prohibitive for people faxing you - the national rate would apply anyway unless the faxer was sending to a local faxee. The downside is some email providers limit the size of attachments you are allowed to receive, so your faxer may have to break up the fax into several parts. Of course, you can only receive and not send faxes unless you sign up for the premium service. The premium service is handy if you have a thing against buying a faxmachine or if you want to send faxes on the road from anywhere. It compares favourably against the eFax.com premium service which costs $119.40 USD (£85.35 GBP at July 16, 2001) per year. It also compares favourably on call charges - the eFax.com call charges are $0.16 USD (£0.11 GBP at July 16, 2001) per minute to a UK fax number.

Faxwise seems like a good fax service contender. They are a UK based Europe-wide company. Faxwise is a division of Community Internet plc which is owned by Community Internet Europe Ltd. Community Internet was formed in 1996, so in internet terms they have been going for a long time and are unlikely to go bust and take your fax number into the big blue oblivion with them.

Summary: