Using the Internet to send faxes in order to eliminate long distance charges and stand-alone fax equipment. The fax may originate from a physical fax machine or from an e-mail with attached documents. There are numerous fax services that, for a monthly fee, accept e-mails with attachments or actual outgoing faxes and route them over the Internet. At the receiving end, the fax is sent to the recipient by e-mail or to a physical fax machine.

Free Services
There are free services that accept a document over the Internet from a computer and send it to a fax machine along with an ad on the cover sheet. Such services are typically limited to only a few pages per fax and one or two faxes per day. They typically accept files in only the most popular formats such as Word and PDF, whereas paid services may support more formats.

Mail to Fax/Fax to Mail
The e-mail to fax/fax to e-mail approach has become very popular, and traditional fax machines may include fax to e-mail conversion. Such "iFax" or "eFax" machines have a direct connection to the Internet for sending and receiving faxes. See fax, fax gateway, T.37 and T.38.