Re: faxing via broadband
On Friday 06 May 2005 11:05, hja123 wrote:
> Interesting, what you said about faxing and broadband. I would have
> thought that it is possible since broadband can handle images. I came
> across some non-free software available for this purpose.
Well, broadband itself, like a modem, is not really about sending images: it's
a low-level communication system, for sending and receiving data of some
kind. In the case of modems and fax machines, the technology is very
similar: they take data and encode it as audio, then send it over a
phoneline, and finally decode it again. A fax basically *is* a modem with
built-in image scanning/conversion/printing.
On the other hand, a broadband "modem" is something quite different: it sends
and receives data in an entirely different way, that has nothing to do with
the way faxes send and receive data.
Where the confusion lies is that both technologies are used as underlying
communication methods for Internet communications, but when you send an image
over the internet, you're not sending it in a way that's similar to fax. In
fact, it's VERY different. Rather than calling someone, and sending a
digital image, you're connecting to the internet, finding another computer on
that network, and digitally sending data through some high-level protocol.
What you send could be an image, a sound, or a CD: it's all the same as far
as the internet is concerned, but a fax machine wouldn't understand any of
it, image or not.
--
Lee.
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