In short
No. Carriers are retiring the analogue telephone network, but fax numbers and fax transmission carry on. A machine wired to the wall jack goes silent the day its area switches over; a web service like FaxTelecom, which does not use your line, is unaffected.
A line technology going dark
In Canada, incumbent carriers such as Bell and Telus are retiring copper lines area by area as fibre arrives, under the oversight of the CRTC, and European carriers are on the same path. The medium is what disappears: landline numbers can usually be kept, and fax remains a recognised way of exchanging documents, particularly in healthcare and public administration.
The fax machine at switch-over
The day the area closes, a machine wired to the wall socket has no dial tone. Plugged into the phone port of an internet box instead, it may get a line back yet fail often: voice-over-IP codecs, tuned for speech, mangle fax tones.
Four ways to keep going
Fit the line with a gateway or box that supports T.38 — the protocol designed to carry fax across IP networks; subscribe to a fax-to-email plan, which keeps a number for receiving; use a sending website such as FaxTelecom; or agree on another channel with your contacts.
It all depends on how you use fax. If you only need to send documents, a browser is enough, with no hardware and no line. Our guide to the copper switch-off and our fax migration plan for organizations go into detail.
Key points
- Copper goes; fax stays.
- A fax machine on a box often fails if the box ignores T.38.
- Alternatives: T.38 gateway, fax-to-email, web sending, another channel.
- FaxTelecom does not use your line: the switch-over does not affect it.