Immediate solution: Scan your signature and use an email/web - fax service Better answer: I've thought about this problem a lot. I think the concept of the fax

Immediate solution: Scan your signature and use an email/web - fax service Better answer: I've thought about this problem a lot. I think the concept of the fax machine itself isn't really the issue, it's the fact that it hasn't evolved from communicating via a 19.2K modem over POTS lines. All the alternatives are replacement technologies that don't offer a migration path from the established standard and make it harder to replicate a physical document from A to B. - The fax via email/web alternatives are harder to use because scanning and printing are separate and often difficult steps. - FOIP isn't trivially backwards compatible - you need a gateway provider and a service agreement to send to existing machines. I think Google's cloud print service need to extend to cloud scanning. As a first step you could then have multifunction scanner/printer/copiers that attempt to contact the recipient via IP first and then either fall back to regular fax or use a proxy fax service. IP connections would offer: higher speed, higher resolution, colour, encryption and wireless connectivity. The key is something that's still as easy as a fax machine. Any solution that doesn't focus on copying physical documents is solving a different problem. We already have email for that.