GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF A FACSIMILE
2–24
you could use the facsimile from a personal computer as a network printer
or as an image scanner. Such facsimiles have already started appearing on
the market.
Fig. 2-21 LAN-networked Facsimiles
3.3
Internet Facsimiles
The mere mention of the Internet makes people think of e-mail and home
pages. The Internet is in the process of becoming an indispensable item
just like the telephone in society today. Facsimiles too are being required
to be connected to the Internet in addition to telephone lines. If we con-
sider that “What is important for a facsimile is to deliver image informa-
tion (messages) to the other party,” then we will see that the Internet has
similar kinds of services. The message exchange service on the Internet is
e-mail. That is, if we successfully integrate e-mail and facsimiles, then the
facsimile will come to be usable on the Internet.
The specifications of an Internet facsimile have been under review since
1996 by the
IETF
on the premise that e-mail services will be incorporated.
Standards centering around
RFC
2305 were determined in March of 1998,
and these were turned into recommendation T.37 (simple mode) in July
1998 with the cooperation of the
ITU-T
. These specifications define ser-
vices for specifying mail addresses from facsimile machines connected to
the network for delivering information to other parties or alternatively
delivering e-mail to facsimiles by. If Internet facsimiles are used, we can
use facsimiles to transmit urgent business as e-mail. Also, mobile users
will also be able to receive all facsimiles addressed to themselves as e-
mail, so facsimiles will come to be transmitted and received anywhere.
Full-mode specifications and real-time type T.38 recommendations have
also been added.
Server
LAN
LAN-FAX
Exchange