Hi folks,
This is either real easy or downright impossible.
My girlfriend got a fax machine from her sports association to recieve faxes via our second ISDN number. This thing is a dinosaur and I want to get rid of it and replace it with a fax modem (at least I think that's what I want to do). This assumes that there is a solution out there that recieves faxes without a switched on PC on an analogue modem and can be imported to our PC and printed when we come home and switch on the laptop..

So I assume that I need an Analogue Terminal Adapter and a fax modem from which I can retrieve recieved faxes via the serial port (a la Hayes serial interface or maybe via the wireless LAN).

Question 1 - am I talking through my backside ?
Question 2 - Do such fax modems exist ?
Question 3 - Is it possible to configure an Analogue TA to work on the second ISDN number?

Any ideas / input welcome as long as it's not too abusive

A few quick question as I delve into my distant memories of using/configuring ISDN ...

How is your ISDN presented ? I am assuming it is ISDN2e and not Home Highway or similar ?

What do you currently have in the way of a TA and other equipment ?

As above, and what's your second number doing atm? Would a standard fax machine on a TA be better? I have fitted a few terminal adapters with basic PBX functionalities so you could do that and send calls from the second number to the phone port for the fax machine, or even replace any existing equipment with a ISDN router\PBX.

If you want to receive faxes with no equipment then use a free fax to email service, by far the easiest and cheapest option. You can then either give out the number for this service as a fax number or if the ISDN number has to be used divert that to the fax to email number.

All depends on what you have atm and what other info you supply us with (the more the better).

Many thanks for taking the time.
Currently I have and ISDN NTBA, connected to a Basic TA (For connecting up to three Analogue Phones). So my analogue DECT phone and the fax both use my default number. I want to A; have it recieve on the second Line somehow and B; recieve it with less cumbersome hardware.

I like the suggestion to recieve the fax on an on-line service. I didn't know that was an option and thank you for that idea. Regarding getting an analogue device to link up with my second ISDN number I think I should get BT to figure that one out for me.

However I would like to know if my understanding of the term FAX modem means that the modem is capable of recieving faxes off-line as it were. We only have a laptop and we don't want to leave it on all the time

I use Mistral as it now is (was NKMessage\NetMessage when I signed up) for free fax to email.

If you did want to use a standard fax machine then the cheapest way to get it ISDN enabled would probably be eBay. I think something like the Allied Telesyn AR300 would do the job of TA\PBX for the purposes you require.


No, laptop\PC turned off = no power to fax modem so it can't do anything.

Eh? If it's a powered external one, it's more like no PC connected - modem has no "controlling brain" - at least that's how this dusty trusty old USR Courier I have here works

Ah yeah, forgot about external ones. I was thinking about PCI\PCMCIA\USB bus powered ones.