PSTN switch-off: what happens to my fax?
What closes, what breaks, and the four ways out.
What is going away is the classic analogue telephone line, closed progressively area by area; it is neither the fax number nor the ability to send and receive faxes. A fax machine plugged straight into a wall socket eventually loses its dial tone, and a machine replugged into an IP router often fails because the modem signal copes badly with voice over IP. You have four ways out: a T.38-capable adapter, a fax-to-email service, an online sending service, or dropping fax where the recipient accepts something else. The choice hinges on one question: do you only need to send, or also to receive?
What closes, and what does not
What is stopping is the switched telephone network: the historic analogue line, the one where the phone and the fax machine plug straight into a wall socket and work even without mains power in the building. European operators are closing it progressively, area by area, having already stopped selling new ones. The replacement is telephony over IP, where voice and fax travel through the internet router.
What is not stopping is fax itself. The protocol is unchanged, numbers stay assigned and reachable, and the organisations that ask for a fax carry on asking. The change affects the path between the two ends, not the service. That is why an online sending service is unaffected by the switch-off: there is no line and no device at your end to migrate.
How to tell whether you are affected
Four signs, from the simplest to the most reliable.
Your fax machine plugs into a wall socket
If it connects directly to a telephone socket in the wall — rather than to your internet router — it almost certainly uses an analogue line, so the switch-off concerns you.
Your bill mentions an analogue line
The wording varies by operator: analogue line, classic telephone subscription, PSTN. When in doubt, customer service settles it in one question.
Your sends have started failing
Transmissions that used to go through and now fail for no visible reason, often after a router or plan change, are the classic symptom of the move to IP — not of a broken machine.
Your operator has written to you
Closures are announced in advance to the subscribers concerned. That is the only source giving a valid date for your address: the schedule is neither national nor uniform.
Why a fax breaks on an IP line
A fax machine does not transmit data: it emits a sound, and relies on that sound arriving intact. Voice over IP is optimised for human speech — it compresses, it corrects, it conceals packet loss. All of that is excellent for a conversation and destructive for a modem signal, which needs faithful reproduction rather than pleasant reproduction.
The technical answer exists: the T.38 protocol demodulates the signal at the edge of the network, carries the pages as packets, then remodulates them on the way out. It still requires your adapter to support it and your operator to enable it. That is exactly the question to ask, in those words, before buying anything.
The four ways out
Keep the machine with a T.38 adapter
An ATA adapter supporting T.38, with an operator that supports it too, keeps your fax machine and your habits. It is the heaviest option to set up, and the only one that keeps a paper machine at the end of the chain.
Move to fax by email
A provider assigns or takes over a number and turns incoming faxes into attachments. No machine and no line, but a subscription — and the confidentiality of your documents becomes that of your mailbox.
Send online, with nothing to migrate
If you only need to send, an online service is enough and requires no hardware, no line and no subscription. That is what MondialFax does, free and without registration. Receiving, on the other hand, needs a number reserved for you, hence a paid service.
Stop faxing
Often the best answer and the least considered: many organisations that accept fax also accept email, a secure portal or post. One phone call sometimes saves an entire migration.
And your fax number?
An assigned number does not vanish with the technology that carried it. Portability lets you take it, in principle, to an operator or provider offering fax over IP, which saves warning every correspondent and reprinting your stationery. Conditions and timescales depend on the number and the operators involved: check before cancelling anything, never after.
The order of operations matters more than the technical choice. Cancelling the line first and looking for a solution afterwards is the surest way to lose a number your correspondents have been using for fifteen years.
Frequently asked questions
- When will my line be closed?
- There is no single date: closure happens area by area, on a schedule specific to each operator and revised over time. The only valid answer for your address is your operator's, and it is notified to you in advance.
- Will my fax machine stop working overnight?
- On a closed analogue line there is no dial tone and the machine becomes unusable as it stands. On a line already moved to IP the usual scenario is different and more confusing: the machine appears to work, but transmissions fail erratically.
- Do I need to buy a new fax machine?
- Rarely. The problem is not the machine but how the signal travels: a brand-new machine on the same badly configured IP line will fail in the same way. What to check is T.38 support, on the adapter and at the operator.
- Can I still send a fax without a phone line?
- Yes. An online sending service uses neither your line nor your machine: the document goes from your browser to our servers, which dial the number. It is free and registration-free on MondialFax, and the copper switch-off changes nothing about it.
Continue exploring
The most useful pages to carry on with your fax.