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From: biar!trebor@uunet.uu.net (Robert J Woodhead)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Phone/Fax Switchbox -- Do They Work?
Message-ID: <10237@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 30 Jul 90 10:36:54 GMT
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cjp%megatek.UUCP@ucsd.edu (Christopher J. Pikus) writes:


>	I've been considering getting a fax machine for home use but
>am hesitant to connect it to my primary residence line. Mainly How do
>I prevent the FAX machine from answering calls meant for myself while
>receiving data calls.

In Japan, where there are many fax machines, there is apparently a
nifty answering machine that also lets you connect a fax machine to
it.  What you end up with is something like this:

[The Phone Company]<-->[Your Phone]<-->[Answering machine]<-->[Your Fax]

When you answer the phone and hear the dulcet tones of a fax machine,
you just push the button on your fax machine and the fax's talk to
each other.  When the answering machine picks up the phone, it starts
with the outgoing message, and records an answer, but if it hears fax
tones it shuts down and sends them on to the fax machine.

To handle manual fax calls, you leave instructions ("Start your fax
machine now") in your outgoing message.

Note : I have never actually seen one of these, but have sent faxes to
numbers in Japan that have them (imagine my surprise the first time,
when a fax number starts talking to me in Japanese [my Japanese is
rudimentary, unfortunately]).  I'll be in Japan in September, and will
check them out then.


Robert J Woodhead, Biar Games, Inc.  !uunet!biar!trebor trebor@biar.UUCP