Just the Fax: Why 43 Million Machines Still Refuse to Die

How a 180-year-old technology continues to send 17 billion messages annually, and why every prediction of its death has been hilariously wrong

Just the Fax: Why 43 Million Machines Still Refuse to Die

How a 180-year-old technology continues to send 17 billion messages annually, and why every prediction of its death has been hilariously wrong


Okay, picture this: You’re some tech pundit back in 1998, probably wearing khakis and feeling pretty smart about yourself, confidently telling everyone that email will completely kill fax machines within five years. β€œWho needs those screeching, paper-wasting relics when you can send documents instantly via the internet?”

Fast forward to 2025, and somewhere in the world right now, a fax machine is whirring to life, adding to the 17 billion faxes sent annually across 43-46 million machines that stubbornly refuse to become obsolete.

Yeah, you read that right. 17 BILLION. In 2025.

Welcome to the absolutely wild story of the fax machine. This thing is so resilient it makes cockroaches look fragile. Not only did it survive the digital revolution, it’s actually thriving in ways that would make its 19th-century inventors lose their minds.

Wait, Fax is Older Than the Telephone?! (Yes, Really)

Here’s a fact that’s gonna blow your brain: fax technology is older than the telephone.

I’m not kidding. While Alexander Graham Bell was still figuring out how to make voices travel through wires, this Scottish dude named Alexander Bain had already patented the β€œElectric Printing Telegraph” in 1843. This was a crude but totally functional system for sending images over wire.

Alexander Bain's Electric Printing Telegraph from 1843 Alexander Bain’s revolutionary β€œElectric Printing Telegraph” - the world’s first fax machine, invented 33 years before the telephone

Let me repeat that: 33 years before Bell’s telephone patent, we had fax machines.

This wasn’t just some random historical footnote either. Bain’s device could sync up two pendulums to scan and reproduce messages line by line. Basically, he built the world’s first fax machine while most people were still getting around on horses.

The Real MVP: Giovanni Caselli’s Pantelegraph (1865)

By 1865, this Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli had built the Pantelegraph, which was the first commercially successful fax system. This beast could transmit images up to 800 kilometers across telegraph wires.

Giovanni Caselli's Pantelegraph - the first commercially successful fax system Caselli’s Pantelegraph, circa 1861 - the world’s first practical fax machine

Get this: it was so successful that it was sending handwritten messages between major European cities while most people were still figuring out how to use a telegraph. We’re talking about fax networks in the 1860s!

The timeline gets even crazier:

  • 1880: Shelford Bidwell invented scanning phototelegraphy
  • 1888: Elisha Gray’s Telautograph sent handwritten notes over long distances
  • 1902: Arthur Korn revolutionized newspapers with photo transmission
  • 1924: AT&T added pictures to phone lines; RCA made it wireless
  • 1964: Xerox’s LDX became the first β€œmodern” commercial fax machine

Shelford Bidwell's Phototelegraph apparatus Shelford Bidwell’s scanning phototelegraphy apparatus from 1880 - another leap forward in image transmission

Arthur Korn's Bildtelegraph Arthur Korn’s Bildtelegraph revolutionized newspaper photo transmission in 1902

Elisha Gray's Telautograph Elisha Gray’s Telautograph from 1888 - transmitting handwritten notes over long distances

Technical diagram of Caselli's Pantelegraph from 1855 Technical diagram of the Pantelegraph from 1855 - notice the intricate pendulum mechanism

So while everyone thinks fax is some ancient relic, it’s actually one of humanity’s earliest forms of electronic communication. This technology helped build the foundation for our entire connected world. Pretty wild, right?

Historic fax transmission from 1862 An actual historic transmission from 1862 - proof that people were β€œfaxing” before your great-great-grandparents were born

Fax at Sea: The Original Emergency Communication

One of the coolest applications of fax was on ships. Think about it: you’re hundreds of miles from the nearest anything, and you need weather info to not die in a storm.

Enter radiofax (or β€œweatherfax”): a system that broadcasts weather charts via high-frequency radio waves to ships anywhere on the ocean. They started experimenting with this in 1926, and it became absolutely crucial for maritime safety.

Marine weatherfax equipment Marine weatherfax equipment - still essential for ships worldwide, nearly a century after its introduction

Even today, when ships have satellite internet and GPS, radiofax weather maps are still super popular as backup. Why? Because when you’re in the middle of the Pacific and there’s a storm brewing, you want every possible source of weather data. And fax has been rock-solid reliable for nearly a century.

The Weird Science Behind Those Screeching Sounds

Ever wonder what the hell those bizarre screeching sounds are when a fax connects? They’re not random noise. They’re actually this intricate digital handshake happening.

Here’s the magic:

The Scanning Process

Modern fax machines use a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) scanner with hundreds of tiny photosensors. These sensors blast your document with light and detect what bounces back:

  • Black areas absorb light β†’ low voltage signal
  • White areas reflect light β†’ high voltage signal

This creates a continuous analog signal that gets converted into a bitmap. It’s basically a grid of black and white pixels at 204 horizontal Γ— 98 vertical dots per inch.

The β€œHandshake Tones”

Those characteristic screeching sounds? That’s the modems in both machines having a conversation:

  1. Establishing connection (β€œHello, are you a fax machine?”)
  2. Negotiating transmission speed (β€œWhat’s the fastest we can go?”)
  3. Synchronizing the process (β€œReady to receive!”)

The Transmission Magic

The bitmap gets converted into audio-frequency tones. Different tones represent black or white pixels. These tones travel over regular phone lines, where the receiving machine’s modem converts them back into the original image.

Modern fax machines use crazy sophisticated data compression (Modified Huffman, Modified READ) to squeeze out redundant info like long stretches of white space, which speeds everything up dramatically.

It’s basically early digital image transmission. This tech was sending pictures over phone lines decades before the internet existed. Pretty badass when you think about it.

The Dark Side: Security Exploits and Prison Breaks

Despite everyone thinking fax is this secure, β€œoff-internet” thing, it’s got its own unique vulnerabilities that are honestly kind of terrifying.

The β€œFaxploit” Attack (2018)

Check Point Research found this absolutely insane vulnerability they called β€œFaxploit”. Attackers could hack entire corporate networks using nothing more than a fax number (which is usually right there on business cards).

Here’s how bonkers this was:

  1. Embed malicious code in an image file
  2. Send via fax to the target machine
  3. When the fax machine decodes the image, the malware executes
  4. Gain control of the machine and potentially the entire network

The scary part? This worked on tens of millions of fax machines worldwide, including modern multi-function printers with fax capability.

The Prison Escape Fax

Here’s a wild one: an inmate in a Turkish prison reportedly used a phony court order sent via fax to get himself released. This shows the crazy implicit trust people have in faxed documents: if it came through official channels, it must be legit, right?

Traditional Vulnerabilities

  • No encryption on analog phone lines (super easy to intercept)
  • Stack overflow exploits in fax protocols
  • Human error: sending to wrong numbers, leaving sensitive docs in public trays

Why Email Didn’t Kill the Fax Star

In the ’90s and 2000s, every tech expert was absolutely certain fax would die within years. Email was faster, cheaper, way more versatile. Why would anyone stick with those paper-wasting noise machines?

They were so hilariously wrong. Here’s why:

Lots of industries operate under regulations written back when fax machines were cutting-edge:

  • Healthcare: HIPAA compliance often requires secure, auditable transmission of patient data. Over 70% of US hospitals still rely on fax for this stuff.
  • Legal: Courts and law firms need documents with verifiable signatures and timestamps. Faxed contracts are legally recognized in many places where electronic signatures might not cut it.
  • Finance: Banks use fax for loan applications and credit reports to comply with regulations like Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and Sarbanes-Oxley.

The β€œNetwork Effect”

The sheer number of existing fax machines created this network effect. Businesses had to keep fax capability to talk to clients and partners who still used them. Same reason we still support β€œlegacy” systems in tech.

Perceived Security

While not bulletproof (as Faxploit proved), traditional fax felt way more secure than early email:

  • Dedicated phone lines seemed harder to intercept than internet traffic
  • Physical documents gave you tangible proof of transmission
  • No spam filters to worry about: your fax would definitely arrive

Universal Interoperability

The Group 3 fax standard from 1980 meant virtually any fax machine could talk to any other. This gave a level of seamless compatibility that early email systems couldn’t touch.

Fax by the Numbers: Still Very Much Alive

The stats are genuinely mind-blowing:

  • 43-46 million fax machines still operating worldwide
  • 17 billion faxes sent annually (and growing!)
  • 70% of US hospitals use fax regularly
  • 8,000-9,000 fax machines active in the UK’s NHS alone
  • 11% annual growth in global fax services market (2022-2027)

Geographic Hotspots

Japan is the ultimate fax holdout, where the technology is deeply embedded in business culture. Reasons include:

  • Cultural preference for tangible documentation
  • Perceived security advantages
  • Kanji compatibility: fax handled complex Japanese characters way better than early digital text formats
  • Government resistance: Japanese officials faced serious pushback when trying to reduce fax reliance

Historic Pantelegraph transmission from February 10, 1862 The first β€œpantelegram” sent from Paris to Lyon on February 10, 1862 - this is what 160+ year old fax technology actually looked like

Fax as Art: When David Hockney Went Full Send

Perhaps the most unexpected chapter in fax history is when artists embraced these machines as creative tools. From the late ’70s through the ’90s, artists used fax machines for expression, collaboration, and cultural commentary.

Want the full story? Check out our dedicated deep dive: David Hockney’s Fax Art Revolution: When Artists Hijacked the Office Machine

The β€œFax Art” Movement

Artists discovered that fax machines’ technical limitations (low resolution, distortion, visual noise) could be turned into deliberate aesthetic features. This created a unique β€œgraphic language of poor images” that was totally unique to the medium.

David Hockney, one of the most famous artists to go all-in on fax art, extensively used these machines in the late ’80s and early ’90s. He even participated in the 1989 SΓ£o Paulo Biennial β€œvia fax” and called the machine β€œthe wonderful machine, the enemy of totalitarianism, the return of handwritten letters.”

Office β€œFaxlore”

Before internet memes, there was β€œfaxlore”: anonymous workplace humor including poetry, collages, and cartoons that got photocopied and faxed around offices. These were the original β€œviral” office content, spreading critiques of corporate life through the very infrastructure companies provided.

Urban Legend Transmission

Fax machines became highways for spreading urban legends and hoaxes, like the infamous 1993 β€œlights out” gang initiation warning that flooded fax machines in Memphis. These messages looked like they came from official sources, giving wild claims an air of authority. Basically a preview of how misinformation spreads online today.

The β€œFax is Dead” Hall of Fame

The predictions of fax death are genuinely hilarious in hindsight:

Late ’90s/Early 2000s: The Dot-Com Boom Predictions

  • β€œThe fax machine is an endangered species”
  • β€œEmail will completely eliminate the need for faxes within five years”
  • β€œWhy would anyone still use fax when the internet exists?”

What They Totally Missed

These confident predictions failed to account for:

  • Regulatory compliance requirements in major industries
  • Cultural entrenchment in business processes
  • Legal framework inertia: laws written with fax in mind
  • The rise of online fax services that kept functionality without physical machines

The Ironic Reality

While pundits declared fax dead, the technology just evolved. Modern β€œonline fax” or β€œe-fax” services bridge the gap between legacy systems and the digital world, letting fax functionality persist and even grow without needing actual physical machines.

The Resilience Lesson

The fax machine’s story teaches us something fascinating about tech resilience. Pure technical superiority doesn’t guarantee adoption or elimination. Tech adoption gets driven by:

  • Legal and regulatory frameworks
  • Cultural habits and preferences
  • Industry-specific needs
  • Network effects and interoperability
  • Perceived (not just actual) security

Fax didn’t succeed because it was the best technology. It succeeded because it solved specific problems for specific communities in ways that newer tech couldn’t easily replicate.

The Fax of the Future

Today’s fax landscape looks totally different from those screeching machines of the ’80s:

  • Cloud-based fax services handle millions of transmissions without any physical hardware
  • Mobile fax apps let you send documents from your smartphone
  • API integrations connect fax functionality to modern business software
  • Enhanced security features address traditional vulnerabilities
  • Environmental benefits through digital fax reduce paper waste

Conclusion: Long Live the (Digital) Fax

The fax machine’s journey from Alexander Bain’s 1843 β€œElectric Printing Telegraph” to today’s cloud-based transmission services shows the staying power of actually useful technology. While the whirring and screeching of physical machines might become rare, the core concept of fax (secure, reliable document transmission) keeps evolving.

So next time someone confidently predicts the death of some β€œobsolete” technology, remember the fax machine. Sometimes the most persistent technologies aren’t the flashiest or newest. They’re the ones that solve real problems for real people, even if they do it with a bit of screeching and the occasional urban legend.

After all, in a world where 17 billion faxes still get sent annually, maybe it’s time to stop calling it a relic and start recognizing it as one of humanity’s most enduring communication innovations.

The fax machine: still here, still screeching, still proving the pundits wrong.


Want to learn more about technology that refuses to die? Check out our other posts on vintage computing and retro communication systems

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