Gerry said:
Lem
It does depend on the modem and the line. I could connect my 56k fax
modem to my telephone line and it would work. My telephone line is used
for my broadband connection and for telephone calls. I have actually
chosen to have a dedicated fax line because handling incoming phone
calls and faxes does not work well. together. If you are just sending
faxes there is no problem. The problem is knowing whether an incoming
call is a call or a fax.
The key difference between your situation and that of the OP is that you
are using a telephone line, which suggests that your broadband Internet
connection is DSL, while the OP apparently has cable Internet service.
DSL can indeed share an analog line (and thus a fax signal) with a
telephone signal (as long as you use the proper filters). A cable
Internet connection can not.
One *possible* exception to the above is the use of Voice over IP
(VoIP). That is, there are several vendors that sell devices that permit
regular analog telephones to be connected to the Internet. Examples are
Vonage and MagicJack. Although VoIP works well, faxing over a broadband
Internet connection (FoIP), even with a dedicated fax machine, is a
different story. And Windows Fax Services is not nearly as robust as a
dedicated fax machine. One can *perhaps* make Windows Fax work with a
Vonage or MagicJack connection, but there's no guarantee of success and
one would have to do some research to find out the required settings.
http://www.foip.org/
If you want to share a telephone line between your fax modem and your
regular telephone, you need to buy a fax switch.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fax+switch&cts=1248287646549&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g8
Personally, I use your solution: a dedicated fax line and a separate
telephone line. Over time, however, the cost of this arrangement will
exceed the cost of a fax switch.