IP: FAX AND VOICE TO E-MAIL NETWORK LAUNCHED FOR INTERNET USERS

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

I am sending this since I have been using it for the past two months or so
and find it very useful.  My Jfax New York number is 1-212-253-4135.   djf




FIRST GLOBAL FAX AND VOICE TO E-MAIL NETWORK LAUNCHED FOR INTERNET USERS


JFAX delivers faxes and voice messages by Internet electronic mail;
Service says it will make fax and telephone answering machines 
obsolete, saving business billions of dollars;
No extra hardware needed to connect any telephone to Internet users


NEW YORK (April 29, 1996) - JFAX Communications, Inc. announced today that
it has launched the first global network that enables users to receive faxes
and voice mail messages directly in their Internet E-Mail.


The new JFAX(TM) service allows every fax machine and phone on earth to be 
connected to users' Internet electronic mail. Until now, Internet users
could only send E-Mail to each other. 


"JFAX lets everyone in the world with a fax or a phone reach you via E-Mail.
Your contacts don't have to be on the Internet or even have a computer,"
explained Jaye Muller, the twenty-four-year-old president of JFAX
Communications.


In addition to simplifying and consolidating office communication functions,
JFAX will save subscribers billions of dollars by eliminating the need for
facsimile hardware, costly fax software, and fax paper.  "JFAX heralds the
beginning of the end of the fax machine as we know it. It will make physical
fax machines obsolete for twenty million E-Mail users," predicted Muller.
Unique personal JFAX phone numbers with Internet delivery of faxes are being
made available immediately in New York, London, and Atlanta. JFAX is also
offering users a U.S. toll-free service.


Internet users are able to sign up for the JFAX service on the company's
World Wide Web site at http://www.jfax.net/.


Other global cities - including Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, Los Angeles, San
Francisco, Chicago, Washington, and Sydney - will be added by the end of the
second quarter of 1996.


Prior to JFAX, faxes and voice messages could only be delivered to places.
To get a fax, one had to be where it was sent. With JFAX, faxes are sent to
people rather than machines. JFAX users are able to get their faxes wherever
they happen to be, even when they are traveling. They don't have to be
on-line when faxes are sent to them. Their faxes will be waiting in their
E-Mail box when they log on. Privacy is ensured because JFAX delivers faxes
and voice messages directly into a subscriber's E-Mail box, eliminating
forwarding to offices or hotels where they can be read by others.


Personal JFAX numbers are being provided worldwide at a base rate of $12.50
per month-considerably less than the price of a dedicated business fax-phone
line. The JFAX service includes viewing software which is distributed free
of charge over the Internet.


JFAX proprietary technology instantly converts incoming faxes into a
compressed graphic binary file and automatically delivers it via Internet to
the subscriber's E-Mail box. When JFAX users check their electronic mailbox,
their faxes are there in their original format with excellent graphic and
text quality.


In its initial version, the free, downloadable software, dubbed JFAX
Communicator(TM), allows users to view, print, and save their incoming
faxes. The software interfaces with E-Mail and on-line service packages and
allows users to zoom in and out, rotate or adjust the size of the document
to get a full view of incoming faxes. 


JFAX is a multi-platform service. The free software is available for users
of Windows 95, Windows 3.1, and Macintosh.


In May, JFAX will introduce JFAX FaxSend, which will allow subscribers to
send faxes via E-Mail to any fax machine in the world. 


In June, JFAX will add voice-mail to E-Mail capability at no extra charge to
all 
subscribers. This will enable voice-mail from any phone on earth to arrive
in users' E-Mail. The voice-mail component utilizes a compression algorithm
which is currently in the final stages of Beta testing.


"The beauty of JFAX is you won't have to go to different places to get all
your faxes, voice-mail and e-mail messages," said JFAX executive
vice-president and board member Geoff Goodfellow.


Goodfellow, founder and former CEO of the wireless e-mail company RadioMail,
sees JFAX as a major leap forward in communications capabilities: "JFAX
evolves us from the twentieth century Telephone System of connecting
'people-to-places' - call me at the office, send a fax to me at this hotel.
JFAX ushers us into the twenty-first century of connecting
'people-to-people' - by linking subscribers of the world's largest network,
the telephone system, to users of the world's second largest and fastest
growing network, the Internet.  It's potential is awesome!"